The Mit Press: 939 books
Streetlights and Shadows
Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision Making
Language: English
Release Date: September 30, 2011
An expert explains how the conventional wisdom about decision making can get us into trouble—and why experience can't be replaced by rules, procedures, or analytical methods.
In making decisions, when should we go with our gut and when should we try to analyze every option? When should we...
by Tim Kasser
Language: English
Release Date: August 29, 2003
Language: English
Release Date: August 29, 2003
In The High Price of Materialism, Tim Kasser offers a scientific explanation of how our contemporary culture of consumerism and materialism affects our everyday happiness and psychological health. Other writers have shown that once we have sufficient food, shelter, and clothing, further material gains...
Elbow Room
The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting
Language: English
Release Date: August 7, 2015
A landmark book in the debate over free will that makes the case for compatibilism.
In this landmark 1984 work on free will, Daniel Dennett makes a case for compatibilism. His aim, as he writes in the preface to this new edition, was a cleanup job, “saving everything that mattered about the...
Working Minds
A Practitioner's Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis
Language: English
Release Date: July 7, 2006
How to collect data about cognitive processes and events, how to analyze CTA findings, and how to communicate them effectively: a handbook for managers, trainers, systems analysts, market researchers, health professionals, and others.
Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) helps researchers understand...
Humanity's End
Why We Should Reject Radical Enhancement
Language: English
Release Date: August 20, 2010
An argument that achieving millennial life spans or monumental intellects will destroy values that give meaning to human lives.
Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this...
by Colin Allen, Michael Hand
Language: English
Release Date: January 16, 2001
Language: English
Release Date: January 16, 2001
Logic Primer presents a rigorous introduction to natural deduction systems of sentential and first-order logic.
Logic Primer presents a rigorous introduction to natural deduction systems of sentential and first-order logic. The text is designed to foster the student-instructor relationship....
Language, Consciousness, Culture
Essays on Mental Structure
Language: English
Release Date: January 23, 2009
An integrative approach to human cognition that encompasses the domains of language, consciousness, action, social cognition, and theory of mind that will foster cross-disciplinary conversation among linguists, philosophers, psycholinguists, neuroscientists, cognitive anthropologists, and evolutionary...
Yuck!
The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust
Language: English
Release Date: June 10, 2011
An exploration of the character and evolution of disgust and the role this emotion plays in our social and moral lives.
People can be disgusted by the concrete and by the abstract—by an object they find physically repellent or by an ideology or value system they find morally abhorrent. Different...
by Tiffany Field
Language: English
Release Date: February 28, 2003
Language: English
Release Date: February 28, 2003
An essay on the importance of touch to children's growth and development and to the physical and mental well-being of people of all ages.
The first sensory input in life comes from the sense of touch while a baby is still in the womb, and touch continues to be the primary means of learning...
by Don Ross, Jessica C Flack, Doug Erwin
Language: English
Release Date: February 22, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: February 22, 2013
Essays from a range of disciplinary perspectives show the central role that cooperation plays in structuring our world.
This collection reports on the latest research on an increasingly pivotal issue for evolutionary biology: cooperation. The chapters are written from a variety of disciplinary...
by Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Language: English
Release Date: February 27, 2004
Language: English
Release Date: February 27, 2004
An anecdotal guide for the perplexed new investigator as well as a refreshing resource for the old pro, covering everything from valuable personality traits for an investigator to social factors conducive to scientific work.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a mythic figure in science. Hailed as...
Subjectivity and Selfhood
Investigating the First-Person Perspective
Language: English
Release Date: August 29, 2008
What is a self? Does it exist in reality or is it a mere social construct—or is it perhaps a neurologically induced illusion? The legitimacy of the concept of the self has been questioned by both neuroscientists and philosophers in recent years. Countering this, in Subjectivity and Selfhood, Dan...
by Daniel M. Wegner
Language: English
Release Date: August 11, 2003
Language: English
Release Date: August 11, 2003
A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism.
Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel...
The Consciousness Paradox
Consciousness, Concepts, and Higher-Order Thoughts
Language: English
Release Date: November 18, 2011
A defense of a version of the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness with special attention to such topics as concepts and animal consciousness.
Consciousness is arguably the most important area within contemporary philosophy of mind and perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world....