In recent decades, issues that reside at the center of\nphilosophical and psychological inquiry have been absorbed into a\nscientific framework variously identified as \“brain science,\”\n\“cognitive science,\” and \“cognitive neuroscience.\” Scholars have\nheralded this development as revolutionary, but a revolution\nimplies an existing method has been overturned in favor of\nsomething new. What long-held theories have been abandoned or\nsignificantly modified in light of cognitive neuroscience?

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\“Consciousness and Mental Life\” questions our present approach\nto the study of consciousness and the way modern discoveries either\nmirror or contradict understandings reached in the centuries\nleading up to our own. Daniel N. Robinson does not wage an attack\non the emerging discipline of cognitive science. Rather, he\nprovides the necessary historical context to properly evaluate the\nrelationship between issues of consciousness and neuroscience and\ntheir evolution over time.

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Robinson begins with Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and\ncontinues through to Ren? Descartes, David Hume, William James,\nDaniel Dennett, John Searle, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and\nDerek Parfit. Approaching the issue from both a philosophical and a\npsychological perspective, Robinson identifies what makes the study\nof consciousness so problematic and asks whether cognitive\nneuroscience can truly reveal the origins of mental events,\nemotions, and preference, or if these occurrences are better\nunderstood by studying the whole person, not just the brain.\nWell-reasoned and thoroughly argued, \“Consciousness and Mental\nLife\” corrects many claims made about the success of brain science\nand provides a valuable historical context for the study of human\nconsciousness.

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