Daniel Robinson is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Georgetown and is on the Oxford philosophy faculty. He has written 50 books, won many awards, and was the main consultant for PBS and BBC for the award-winning programs The Brain and the Mind. His 110 lectures for the Teaching Company are among its most successful. (See also book 326.)

My friend who loaned me this book was correct in saying that much of the book was difficult but one could get a lot from it by reading the Preface and the last two chapters. I agree that one could just read the Preface, Ch 7, and especially Ch 8 and skip the rest, although Ch 6 is also worth reading. However, in this review I summarize it all, relying mainly on quotes from his chapter openings and endings. From the Preface: “What is entailed when we claim to have made revolutionary strides in our understanding of consciousness and mental life?” What must now be abandoned in light of the new cognitive neuroscience? “Is the revolution one of discovery or retreat? Has progress been at the price of irrelevance?” His book provides answers to these questions. My review of Ch 8 has some excellent quotes for his clear answers.

In Ch 1 – The Greeks Again and the Consciousness Problem – ”We (collectively) have come to regard linguistic and conceptual analysis as the right way to work through our own metaphysical conundrums.” …”Finally, granting that the fundamental content for the physical sciences is matter and energy, it is important to keep in mind the question of the foundational content for ‘cognitive neuroscience.’ I shall argue that this content just is ‘folk psychology,’ the authority of which is rejected at the cost of cognitive neuroscience having a subject.”

In Ch 2 – The Problem of Consciousness “Solved” – “…nothing in [Dennett’s book] Consciousness Explained actually explains consciousness, for nothing in the book actually addresses the phenomenology of consciousness itself.” …”What is omitted is finally what is essential about consciousness.” …”…in what sense is consciousness a ‘problem? What mode of solution is intended for the problem of consciousness?” …“Emergentism, supervenience, and epiphenomenalism, which collectively deny the immaterialism of consciousness, offer no argument or evidence that seriously challenges dualistic alternatives.” [Dualistic alternatives are mind-body duality (like Descartes’) and mind-brain duality (of more recent philosophers).] “So far, it seems as if there is this problem and that conventional approaches to it have turned up little beyond what was on offer as Descartes submitted to the criticisms of his contemporaries.”

In Ch 3 – “Cartesianism” Revisited – “… much of the anti-Cartesian labors of the day recover what is explicit in Descartes’ celebrated contemporaries. Anti-Cartesianism is now largely ‘code’ for a defense of physicalism no more credible and no more coherent than what Descartes had attempted to defend.” In Ch 4 – Higher-Order Thought; A Machine in the Ghost – “There is a range of theories about consciousness judged to be “leading edge” and influential in contemporary cognitive neuroscience. They all have much in common, not the least of which are unintended ‘Cartesian’ features – not to mention an often spirited ‘refutation’ of Cartesianism.” In Ch 5 – Self-Consciousness – ”The way ‘I’ works is different from ordinary descriptions and inferences.” …”It is true – even a truism – that ‘I’ and ‘me’ should not be taken as in any way ‘mysterious and unexampled,’ for they refer to what must be indubitable to any conscious being able to have and report experiences.”

In Ch 6 – Emotion – “A persistent theme in philosophy, both ancient and modern, with authorities extending as far back as the Old Testament and Homer, finds human nature to be a house divided, emotions living on the lower floors and creating such havoc that the rationality living on the upper levels is often fitful and besides itself.” …”As to debates between cognitivists and noncognitivists, interesting though they are, they are finally besides the main points under consideration, which pertain not to the fundamental character of ‘an emotion’ but to a sound psychological and scientific approach to actual life.” …”It is mistaken to assume that the combination of evolutionary biology and neuroscience offers a preferred path to a richer understanding of emotion.”

In Ch 7 – Motives, Desires, and Fulfillment – “One of the central issues in philosophy of mind is, of course, that of mental causation” …”The ‘Cartesian’ ghost somehow must induce and guide the movements of the ‘Cartesian’ machine, though the two are substantially different.” …”That we have a mental life and that we are embodied stand at the very foundation of all conceptions and actions. And, from the fact that our intentions and desires yield predictable action patterns, we develop the notion of a union between the two.” …”Something is imagined when it is ‘represented by a corporeal image.’ As ‘soul’ cannot be thus represented, it cannot be imagined.” …”We are able to form notions of material things, notions of mental states, and notions of ‘interactions’ between these.” …”How do we come to believe that the future will be like the past?” …”We impute to regularities in the external world a causal connection modeled on the connection between our own powers and the effects of their deployment.” …”Understanding motivation and desire in all these contexts, including those bearing directly on biological survival, begins with the fact of consciousness and of the actor’s conscious awareness of the power to do something about a given state of affairs. It is not obvious, in light of currently official modes of inquiry and explanation, that cognitive neuroscience has access to the business end of all this.”

In Ch 8 – Plans; an Epilogue – “What counts in consciousness is a past that can be brought into it as a means by which to engage the future, often the immediate future. Consciousness thus understood is a mode of deliberation distinct from awareness.” …”To be consciously aware is to be disposed toward all that might follow based on all that has preceded.” It is focused, thus needs to filter knowledge. “All the facts of consciousness, including those actions and experiences arising from it, have as the framework, within which to be subjected to systematic treatment, folk psychology. If that psychology is in a primitive state relative to its distinctive task, then it is that psychology that requires development and refinement, rather than being abandoned so that some other framework – for example, ‘cognitive neuroscience’ – might be adopted with less frustration or embarrassment.” …”If advice might be useful coming from one who has labored earnestly in both vineyards, that of philosophical reflection and brain science, I would suggest that the ‘cognitive revolution’ be medicated a bit, calmed down, given a pause to regain its sobriety, so that its practitioners might recover a less lofty place but one worthy of praise for its energy and occasionally insightful findings; viz., functional neuroanatomy, chiefly within the context of clinical neurology. As for the philosophers, it would appear advisable to resist the temptation to hyphenate our endearing if vexing subject. Brain function and mental life are connected, to be sure. So, too, is kidney function and mental life. I would no more be inclined toward ‘neurophilosophy’ than ‘hepatophilosophy’. It is for others to end their declarative sentences with exclamation points. Ours should end with a semicolon;” This last quote ends this difficult but often delightful book. Will cognitive neuroscientists take his advice? I think that is unlikely.

Daniel Robinson has fully answered the questions he posed in his Preface. One is left with no doubt at all as to whether he feels that a ‘cognitive revolution’ is more than a bit overblown. I give the Preface, Ch 7, and Ch 8 a very high rating, but I give lower ratings to chapters 1-6. With this in mind I rate this book at 4 stars.