A crucial debate currently raging in the fields of cognitive and social science centers around general and specific approaches to understanding the actions of others. When we understand the actions of another person, do we do so on the basis of a general theory of psychology, or on the basis of an effort to place ourselves in the particular position of that specific person? Hans Herbert Kögler and Karsten R. Stueber's Empathy and Agency addresses this other issues vital to current (...) social science in an advanced and diverse analysis of the foundations of social-scientific methodology based on recent cognitive psychology. The book serves as both an introduction to the debate for non-academic audiences and as a catalyst for further discussion for serious theorists. Empathy and Agency provides a solid foundation of the fundamental issues in social and cognitive science, but also presents the most influential paradigms in the field at this time. (shrink)

In this paper Popper formulates and discusses a new aspect of the theory of mind. This theory is partly based on his earlier developed interactionistic theory. It takes as its point of departure the observation that mind and physical forces have several properties in common, at least the following six: both are located, unextended, incorporeal, capable of acting on bodies, dependent upon body, capable of being influenced by bodies. Other properties such as intensity and extension in time may be added. (...) It is argued that a fuller understanding of the nature of forces is essential for the analysis of the mind-brain problem. The relative autonomy and indeterministic nature of mind is stressed. Indeterminism is treated in relation to a theorem of Hadamard. The computer theory of mind and the Turing test are criticized. Finally the evolution of mind is discussed. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “A Computational Constructivist Model as an Anticipatory Learning Mechanism for Coupled Agent–Environment Systems” by Filipo Studzinski Perotto. Upshot: Mainstream AI research largely addresses cognitive features as separate and unconnected. Instead of addressing cognitive growth in this same way – modeling it simply as one more such isolated feature and continuing to uphold a wrong-headed divide-and-conquer tradition – a constructivist approach should help unify many key phenomena such as anticipation, self-modeling, life-long learning, and recursive self-improvement. (...) Since this is likely to result in complex systems with unanticipated properties, all cognitive architecture researchers should aim to implement their ideas in full as running systems to be verified by experiment. Perotto’s paper falls short on both these points. (shrink)

A Pali Grammar. William Geiger. Translated into English by Batakrishna Ghosh, revised and edited by K. R. Norman. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1994. xxix, 220 pp. Hardback £12.95, paperback £6.75.

Dhammapada. Ed. O. von Hinüber and K.R. Norman. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1994. xv, 148 pp. £10.95.

Index to the Digha-nikaya. Compiled by M. Yamazaki, Y. Ousaka, K. R. Norman and M. Cone. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1997. vii, 357 pp. £19.75. ISBN 0 86013 355 9.