Speaking Minds: Interviews with Twenty Eminent Cognitive Scientists

Few developments in the intellectual life of the past quarter-century have provoked more controversy than the attempt to engineer human-like intelligence by artificial means. Born of computer science, this effort has sparked a continuing debate among the psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers,and linguists who have pioneered--and criticized--artificial intelligence. Are there general principles, as some computer scientists had originally hoped, that would fully describe the activity of both animal and machine minds, just as aerodynamics accounts for the flight of birds and airplanes? In the twenty substantial interviews published here, leading researchers address this and other vexing questions in the field of cognitive science.

The interviewees include Patricia Smith Churchland (Take It Apart and See How It Runs), Paul M. Churchland (Neural Networks and Commonsense), Aaron V. Cicourel (Cognition and Cultural Belief), Daniel C. Dennett (In Defense of AI), Hubert L. Dreyfus (Cognitivism Abandoned), Jerry A. Fodor (The Folly of Simulation), John Haugeland (Farewell to GOFAI?), George Lakoff (Embodied Minds and Meanings), James L. McClelland (Toward a Pragmatic Connectionism), Allen Newell (The Serial Imperative), Stephen E. Palmer (Gestalt Psychology Redux), Hilary Putnam (Against the New Associationism), David E. Rumelhart (From Searching to Seeing), John R. Searle (Ontology Is the Question), Terrence J. Sejnowski (The Hardware Really Matters), Herbert A. Simon (Technology Is Not the Problem), Joseph Weizenbaum (The Myth of the Last Metaphor), Robert Wilensky (Why Play the Philosophy Game?), Terry A.Winograd (Computers and Social Values), and Lotfi A. Zadeh (The Albatross of Classical Logic). Speaking Minds can complement more traditional textbooks but can also stand alone as an introduction to the field.

Originally published in 1995.

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"If you're interested in minds, brains, and machines, this book has something for you, regardless of your opinions and expertise.... The candor and informality make the interviews great fun to read, but the speakers are at heart dead serious.... An informative and useful introduction to current controversies in cognitive science."--Steven Pinker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"These interviews provide fascinating glimpses into the conceptual schemes of some of the leading thinkers in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. The presentation of so many diverse viewpoints is both informative and entertaining."--Paul Thagard, University of Waterloo

"I really like this book. The editors have done a first-class job--the canonical insiders take on Artificial Intelligence and cognitive science. As they suggest, the book is best read as a kind of hypertext, slipping between the various responses to the core questions used to organize the interviews. The result is an invaluable teaching resource and a very good read."--Andy Clark, Washington University

"Baumgartner and Payr have compiled a fascinating collection of the stories that cognitive scientists tell to motivate themselves. The difficulties they encounter get as much attention as their accomplishments in these frank and revealing dialogues. It is cognitive science with a human face."--George A. Miller, Princeton University