The engine of reason, the seat of the soul Book

Churchland's Engine of Reason is dated, and that's too bad, because I actually think it is one of his more well written pieces, probably even more than Plato's Camera [which I gave 5-stars]. The problem is that the change of material in neuroscience and cognitive science make it hard for writing to stay current for very long now; that's not Churchland's fault, but the way that he structures the book makes it far easier for the content to become obsolete, compared to contemporaries like Dan Dennett.

I think that what should be said is that one of the reasons that Engine of Reason has become dated is part of what makes it great as a piece of philosophy: it is current and in touch with the scientific literature that surrounds it. [That isn't to say that other philosophers aren't, but many are more hesitant to bombard readers with scientific content.] Churchland is unabashed about his knowledge of the contemporary literature in the science and, as a result, the book feels almost more like something that would be written for an interdisciplinary audience attempting to talk about the neurosciences than anything in philosophy. This is one thing that I absolutely love about Churchland.

The major criticism that will get tossed at Churchland will come down that same line: This doesn't feel like philosophy. That's true. Of course, if you some of the content of the book, you start to understand why. This book is a part of a conversation in philosophy of mind that happened around the time of the publishing, where philosophers raised concerns about the invocation of traditional intuitive concepts that seemed totally inviable for moving the discussion forward, because the concepts themselves were either incoherent, not meaningful, or not supported by the science. Churchland was largely responsible for championing the view that the terms that don't seem to be doing work should take a backseat to the things that can. That is a fight that Churchland seems to have won in the technical literature.

Paul Churchland's influence on contemporary philosophy, often as the far wing of a spectrum of people concerned with the ability to talk about consciousness in strictly neural terms, is hard to minimize. He has had a major impact as a philosopher of science, generally, and is one of the best ways into a scientifically literate philosophy of mind. Churchland's attempt to understand a broad array of topics in the field is something that should be admired, and his attempt to bring that technical knowledge into the conversation is something that he shares only with the best in professional philosophy of mind.

There are some issues that I take with the literature that don't seem to have gone away from Churchland's writing. He's always very neurocentric. He is incredibly interested in the metaphor of digital computation while acknowledging that the brain is clearly an analogue entity. He limits himself a lot through the use of that approach, which has become something of a standard for him.

I do think that for those looking to seriously pursue philosophy of mind, this is a must-read at some point, largely because it fleshes out some of his points about the use of vectors and why they matter. However, I think that Plato's Camera is something to be taken a little more heavily, as it is far more developed in terms of the ideas in philosophy of mind. Also, this really isn't for those just looking for a casual introduction; make sure you have some familiarity with the literature before diving into any of Paul Churchland's work.