In the time since its initial publication nearly two decades ago, this provocative work has been widely hailed as a singular achievement in scholarship--challenging many of the scientific and philosophical concepts underlying the practice of cognitive neuroscience. Distinguished neuroscientist M.R. Bennett and celebrated philosopher P.M.S. Hacker provide a truly interdisciplinary survey of the conceptual confusion encountered in the neuroscientific and psychological theories of Blakemore, Crick, Edelman, Gazzaniga, LeDoux, Damasio, Kandel, Dehaene, Tononi, Baars and others.

Extensively revised and expanded by 70,000 words, the second edition of this volume incorporates new discussions of the conceptual problems of fMRI and its interpretation, of Integrated Information Theory of Tononi, and of Global Workspace Theory of Dehaene, of conflict monitoring and the Executive, as well as a new chapter on concepts, thinking and speaking. In addition, Bennett and Hacker have inserted dozens of diagrams, tables, and figures into the text to provide overviews of arguments, classifications and comparisons. Detailed responses to criticisms of the first edition are advanced.

Simultaneously a well-informed critique and a conceptual handbook for students and researchers, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Second Edition remains an indispensable resource for everyone looking to understand, and avoid, the conceptual confusions inherent in cognitive neuroscience.

M. R. Bennett AO is Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience and University Chair at the University of Sydney, Founding Director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute, and Chair of the Mind and Neuroscience-Thompson Institute. He is the author and co-author of numerous books, including The Idea of Consciousness, History of the Synapse, History of Cognitive Neuroscience, and Stress, Trauma and Synaptic Plasticity. He is past President of the International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience and of the Australian Neuro-science Society.

P.M.S. Hacker is Emeritus Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford, and holds an Honorary Professorship at University College, London at the Institute of Neurology. He is author and co-author of numerous books and articles on philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, and is the leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. His works include Human Nature: The Categorial Framework, The Intellectual Powers, The Passions, The Moral Powers, and the landmark seven-volume Analytic Commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.