The New Science of the Mind

There is a new way of thinking about the mind that does not locate mental processes
exclusively "in the head." Some think that this expanded conception of the mind will be the basis of
a new science of the mind. In this book, leading philosopher Mark Rowlands investigates the
conceptual foundations of this new science of the mind. The new way of thinking about the mind
emphasizes the ways in which mental processes are embodied (made up partly of extraneural bodily
structures and processes), embedded (designed to function in tandem with the environment), enacted
(constituted in part by action), and extended (located in the environment). The new way of thinking
about the mind, Rowlands writes, is actually an old way of thinking that has taken on new form.
Rowlands describes a conception of mind that had its clearest expression in phenomenology -- in the
work of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. He builds on these views, clarifies and
renders consistent the ideas of embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended mind, and develops a
unified philosophical treatment of the novel conception of the mind that underlies the new science
of the mind.