Cognitive science is a child of the 1950s, the product of a time when psychology, anthropology and linguistics were redefining themselves and computer science and neuroscience as disciplines were coming into existence. Psychology could not participate in the cognitive revolution until it had freed itself from behaviorism, thus restoring cognition to scientific respectability. By then, it was becoming clear in several disciplines that the solution to some of their problems depended crucially on solving problems traditionally allocated to other disciplines. Collaboration (...) was called for: this is a personal account of how it came about. (shrink)

A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.

What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on 30 central philosophical issues. This article documents the results. It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual's views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views. The results of a metasurvey (...) also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession. (shrink)

Natural unity is not an entirely innocent worldview. Various scientists and scholars have tried to use natural unity to legitimize political viewpoints that stand in stark opposition to those of environmentalists who promulgate the unity of nature for progressive social change. This book discusses how this situation has transpired by examining the recent history of the social political and intellectual processes involved. These include the social construction of the Organicism versus Mechanicism debate in ecology, the links between neo-classical economic principles (...) and the 'New Sciences', the techno-scientific background of Chaos theory and Gaja theory, and the social conservatism of ecological functionalism. (shrink)