Don M. Tucker

From a philosopher and a neuropsychologist, a radical rethinking of certain traditional views about human cognition and behavior. Plato's Allegory of the Cave trapped us in the illusion that mind is separate from body and from the natural and physical world. Knowledge had to be eternal and absolute. Recent scientific advances, however, show that our bodies shape mind, thought, and language in a deep and pervasive way. In Out of the Cave, Mark Johnson and Don Tucker--a philosopher and a neuropsychologist--propose a radical rethinking of certain traditional views about human cognition and behavior. They argue for a theory of knowing as embodied, embedded, enactive, and emotionally based. Knowing is an ongoing process--shaped by our deepest biological and cultural values. Johnson and Tucker describe a natural philosophy of mind that is emerging through the convergence of biology, psychology, computer science, and philosophy, and they explain recent research showing that all of our higher-level cognitive activities are rooted in our bodies through processes of perception, motive control of action, and feeling. This developing natural philosophy of mind offers a psychological, philosophical, and neuroscientific account that is at once scientifically valid and subjectively meaningful--allowing us to know both ourselves and the world.

The neural structures of the brain exist to construct information. They do this by creating concepts that relate internal, personal need to external, environmental reality. Meaning is formed in the brain by neural network patterns that traverse these two structures of experience: the visceral nervous system (representing personal need) and the somatic nervous system (interfacing with external reality). How exactly does the brain get from constructing information to creating meaning, and what can this process tell us about the nature of experience? This book addresses both of these questions, making an important contribution to both neuroscience and philosophy.