The Mind's Provisions: A Critique of Cognitivism

The Mind's Provisions accomplishes something unusual: it bridges the cultural and intellectual gap between Anglo-American "analytic" philosophy and Continental thought. French philosopher Vincent Descombes meets analytic philosophy on its turf when he critiques cognitivism and, more generally, the theory of mind that sees mental states as nothing more than the physical workings of the brain. Descombes reasons in the crisp, orderly style that is characteristic of analytic philosophy, and he systematically and convincingly rejects the limiting features of cognitivism.

Though Descombes makes his argument carefully, his intellectual scope is wider than the dull parsing and logical hairsplitting that renders much contemporary philosophy uninteresting. For instance, he is adept with the anthropology of Claude Lévi-Strauss, the structuralism of Louis Dumont, and the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan, in addition to more analytic thinkers like John Searle. In the end, Descombes liberates our thoughts, feelings, and beliefs from reduction to the mechanical workings of brain chemistry and stimuli. Instead, he argues, meaning and mentality are intimately connected with our social contexts and with ourselves, not just our mental hardware. --Eric de Place