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How Not to Naturalize the Theory of Action

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Computers, Brains and Minds

Part of the book series: Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ((AUST,volume 7))

Abstract

This paper is really written for my small son. When he was about six years old he received one of those anatomy books in which different parts of the body pop up at you in the most remarkable ways. Here he first learned of the way in which our limbs are moved by muscle contractions, and how the muscles, in their turn, are stimulated by the nerves and so on. He had evidently been thinking about this, and one day as we were walking in the company of a non-philosophical friend, he asked — a propos of nothing — “Daddy, if the brain makes the muscles work, what makes the brain work?”

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Notes

  1. P.M. Churchland (1986) `Some Reductive Strategies in Cognitive Neurobiology’, Mind XCV, No. 379, pp. 279–309, and `Cognitive Neurobiology: A Computational Hypothesis for Laminar Cortex’, Biology and Philosophy L pp. 25–51.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Cognitive Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Peter Slezak

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  1. Peter Slezak
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Cognitive Science, University of New South Wales, Australia

    Peter Slezak

  2. School of Science and Technology Studies, University of New South Wales, Australia

    W. R. Albury

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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Slezak, P. (1989). How Not to Naturalize the Theory of Action. In: Slezak, P., Albury, W.R. (eds) Computers, Brains and Minds. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1181-9_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1181-9_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7026-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-1181-9

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