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The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding
by Mark JohnsonIn The Meaning of the Body, Mark Johnson continues his pioneering work on the exciting connections between cognitive science, language, and meaning first begun in the classic Metaphors We Live By. Johnson uses recent research into infant psychology to show how the body generates meaning even before self-consciousness has fully developed. From there he turns to cognitive neuroscience to further explore the bodily origins of meaning, thought, and language and examines the many dimensions of meaning—including images, qualities, emotions, and metaphors—that are all rooted in the body’s physical encounters with the world. Drawing on the psychology of art and pragmatist philosophy, Johnson argues that all of these aspects of meaning-making are fundamentally aesthetic. He concludes that the arts are the culmination of human attempts to find meaning and that studying the aesthetic dimensions of our experience is crucial to unlocking meaning's bodily sources. Throughout, Johnson puts forth a bold new conception of the mind rooted in the understanding that philosophy will matter to nonphilosophers only if it is built on a visceral connection to the world. “Mark Johnson demonstrates that the aesthetic and emotional aspects of meaning are fundamental—central to conceptual meaning and reason, and that the arts show meaning-making in its fullest realization. If you were raised with the idea that art and emotion were external to ideas and reason, you must read this book. It grounds philosophy in our most visceral experience.”—George Lakoff, author of Moral Politics
The Meaning of the Concept of Probability in Application to Finite Sequences (Routledge Revivals)
by Hilary PutnamFirst published in 1990, this is a reissue of Professor Hilary Putnam’s dissertation thesis, written in 1951, which concerns itself with The Meaning of the Concept of Probability in Application to Finite Sequences and the problems of the deductive justification for induction. Written under the direction of Putnam’s mentor, Hans Reichenbach, the book considers Reichenbach’s idealization of very long finite sequences as infinite sequences and the bearing this has upon Reichenbach’s pragmatic vindication of induction.
The Meaning of the Twentieth Century: The Great Transition (World Perspectives #2)
by Kenneth BouldingOriginally published in 1965 and written by a noted economist and leader in the field of conflict resolution, this book traces the forces which have brought the 20th century ‘post-civilisation’ into being: the ever-increasing power of science and the scientific attitude, the global communication network, the high efficiency of industrial societies. New conditions pointed to a life of ease but also enormous problems. The book discusses how though our technical resources have become immense, social and psychological conflicts remain. The author’s training in psychology and economics combines with a deep sense of history to create a book which is as relevant now as when it was first published.
The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to life
by A.C. GraylingA refreshing distillation of insights into the human condition, by one of the best-known and most popular philosophers in the UK.Thinking about life, what it means and what it holds in store does not have to be a despondent experience, but rather can be enlightening and uplifting. A life truly worth living is one that is informed and considered so a degree of philosophical insight into the inevitabilities of the human condition is inherently important and such an approach will help us to deal with real personal dilemmas.This book is an accessible, lively and thought-provoking series of linked commentaries, based on A. C. Grayling's 'The Last Word' column in the GUARDIAN. Its aim is not to persuade readers to accept one particular philosophical point of view or theory, but to help us consider the wonderful range of insights which can be drawn from an immeasurably rich history of philosophical thought.Concepts covered include courage, love, betrayal, ambition, cruelty, wisdom, passion, beauty and death. This will be a wonderfully stimulating read and act as an invaluable guide as to what is truly important in living life, whether facing success, failure, justice, wrong, love, loss or any of the other profound experience life throws out.
The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to life
by Prof A.C. GraylingA refreshing distillation of insights into the human condition, by one of the best-known and most popular philosophers in the UK.Thinking about life, what it means and what it holds in store does not have to be a despondent experience, but rather can be enlightening and uplifting. A life truly worth living is one that is informed and considered so a degree of philosophical insight into the inevitabilities of the human condition is inherently important and such an approach will help us to deal with real personal dilemmas.This book is an accessible, lively and thought-provoking series of linked commentaries, based on A. C. Grayling's 'The Last Word' column in the GUARDIAN. Its aim is not to persuade readers to accept one particular philosophical point of view or theory, but to help us consider the wonderful range of insights which can be drawn from an immeasurably rich history of philosophical thought.Concepts covered include courage, love, betrayal, ambition, cruelty, wisdom, passion, beauty and death. This will be a wonderfully stimulating read and act as an invaluable guide as to what is truly important in living life, whether facing success, failure, justice, wrong, love, loss or any of the other profound experience life throws out.
The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to life
by Prof A.C. GraylingThinking about life, what it means and what it holds in store does not have to be a despondent experience, but rather can be enlightening and uplifting. A life truly worth living is one that is informed and considered so a degree of philosophical insight into the inevitabilities of the human condition is inherently important and such an approach will help us to deal with real personal dilemmas.This book is an accessible, lively and thought-provoking series of linked commentaries, based on A.C Grayling's 'The Last Word' column in the Guardian. Its aim is not to persuade readers to accept one particular philosophical point of view or theory, but to help us consider the wonderful range of insights which can be drawn from an immeasurably rich history of philosophical thought.Read by AC Grayling(p) 2005 Orion Publishing Group
The Meaning of Thought
by Markus GabrielFrom populist propaganda attacking knowledge as ‘fake news’ to the latest advances in artificial intelligence, human thought is under unprecedented attack today. If computers can do what humans can do and they can do it much faster, what’s so special about human thought? In this new book, bestselling philosopher Markus Gabriel steps back from the polemics to re-examine the very nature of human thought. He conceives of human thinking as a ‘sixth sense’, a kind of sense organ that is closely tied our biological reality as human beings. Our thinking is not a form of data processing but rather the linking together of images and imaginary ideas which we process in different sensory modalities. Our time frame expands far beyond the present moment, as our ideas and beliefs stretch far beyond the here and now. We are living beings and the whole of evolution is built into our life story. In contrast to some of the exaggerated claims made by proponents of AI, Gabriel argues that our thinking is a complex structure and organic process that is not easily replicated and very far from being superseded by computers. With his usual wit and intellectual verve, Gabriel combines philosophical insight with pop culture to set out a bold defence of the human and a plea for an enlightened humanism for the 21st century. This timely book will be of great value to anyone interested in the nature of human thought and the relations between human beings and machines in an age of rapid technological change.
The Meaning of Truth
by William JamesThe work of a leading figure in the transition from a predominantly European-centered 19th-century philosophy to a new American philosophy, this volume presents a full and definitive expression of the pragmatist epistemology. It encompasses everything James had hitherto written on the theory of knowledge, including later polemic and expository contributions, and replies to previous criticism.
The Meaning of Truth
by William JamesThe Meaning of Truth is one of William James' most important books. It is a necessary read for anyone looking to understand the nature of truth. Does it exist independently of man or does man make truth what it is? Here you will find answers to this and many other questions on the nature of truth. William James was the older brother of novelist Henry James, and a pioneering psychologist and philosopher. His works pushed the boundaries of psychology and helped shape the direction the field would grow in.
Meaning, Quantification, Necessity: Themes in Philosophical Logic (Routledge Library Editions: Logic)
by Martin DaviesOriginally published in 1981. This is a book for the final year undergraduate or first year graduate who intends to proceed with serious research in philosophical logic. It will be welcomed by both lecturers and students for its careful consideration of main themes ranging from Gricean accounts of meaning to two dimensional modal logic. The first part of the book is concerned with the nature of the semantic theorist’s project, and particularly with the crucial concepts of meaning, truth, and semantic structure. The second and third parts deal with various constructions that are found in natural languages: names, quantifiers, definite descriptions, and modal operators. Throughout, while assuming some familiarity with philosophical logic and elementary formal logic, the text provides a clear exposition. It brings together related ideas, and in some places refines and improves upon existing accounts.
Meaning Takes Time to Unfold: Towards a Heideggerian Ontology of Temporal Differentiation (Contributions to Phenomenology #138)
by Renxiang LiuThis book proposes a reconsideration of the intertwinement of time, meaning, and the piecemeal unfolding of things. It gives a phenomenological-ontological account of the time-horizon at work in each being’s manifestation, explores the notion of time as a productive resistance in this manifestation, and redefines human finitude and subjectivity accordingly to enable an attentive mode of waiting for meaning. The discussion is significantly informed by but not limited to the works of Martin Heidegger and thus responds to the question of the turn in Heidegger’s career by suggesting a systematic framework, centered upon a generalized finitude of Being as such, which may have consistently underlain Heidegger’s thinking before and after the turn. As subjectivity receives a qualified affirmation in the book, in contrast to both subjectivist voluntarism and impersonalism, this text also opens up the possibility to think of the plurality of human beings as essential to being human. While the book is a continuation of a few traditions in continental philosophy which takes time philosophically seriously, it is distinctive in not considering time abstractly but always situating its conceptualization in the context of what it means for a thing or an event to be. Instead of a mere measure of change, an itself invariant structure of happening, or a new metaphysical absolute, time is interpreted here as the way beings are. The interpretation comes from, and seeks to do justice to, the basic experience of time bringing about wonder, fulfillment, or disappointment. The book appeals to students and researchers working on Heidegger scholarship, phenomenology, and more generally the philosophy of time and subjectivity. It inspires a patience for meaning in mortal transience, to find dignity and beauty in what will eventually expire—that is, in life as such.
Meaningful Aging from a Humanist Perspective
by Peter Derkx Anthony B. PinnAging is a topic of growing interest. As life expectancy in western societies is increasing, the growing number and proportion of ‘elderly’ persons raise urgent questions on how to age ‘well’. Predominantly, questions on aging are taken from biomedical and economic paradigms, which are intertwined. While people of age are seen as a cost in society, biomedical research aims at curing the declining effects of aging, thus furthering ideals of ‘healthy’ aging, ‘active’ aging, or ‘successful’ aging. In this book, Peter Derkx offers a comprehensive account of meaningful aging with Anthony Pinn responding in a fruitful and constructive way, for the benefit and edification of all of us.
Meaningful Information
by Anthony ReadingThe book introduces a radically new way of thinking about information and the important role it plays in living systems. It opens up new avenues for exploring how cells and organisms change and adapt, since the ability to detect and respond to meaningful information is the key that enables them to receive their genetic heritage, regulate their internal milieu, and respond to changes in their environment. It also provides a way of resolving Descartes' dilemma by explaining the workings of the brain in non-mechanical terms that are not tainted by spiritual or metaphysical beliefs. The types of meaningful information that different species and different cell types are able to detect are finely matched to the ecosystem in which they live, for natural selection has shaped what they need to know to function effectively in those circumstances. Biological detection and response systems range from the chemical configurations that govern genes and cell life to the relatively simple tropisms that guide single-cell organisms, the rudimentary nervous systems of invertebrates, and the complex neuronal structures of mammals and primates. The scope of meaningful information that can be detected and responded to reaches its peak in our own species, as exemplified by our special abilities in language, cognition, emotion, and consciousness, all of which are explored within this new framework.
Meaningful Technologies: How Digital Metaphors Change the Way We Think and Live
by Eric Chown Fernando NascimentoAs smartphones mediate more of our activities, they are changing our relationship with meaning. To a teenager, for example a “conversation” is just as likely to refer to an exchange of text messages as it is a face-to-face discussion. Meanwhile, Facebook has redefined what friendship means, Snapchat what a memory means, etc. The kinds of changes smartphones bring are happening at rapid pace: TikTok reached a billion users in just over three years, whereas it took the telephone 75 years to reach a tenth of that number of people. Meaningful Technologies: How Digital Metaphors Change the Way We Think and Live by Eric Chown and Fernando Nascimento offers systematic reconsideration of the ways in which digital technologies impact our lives both individually and collectively. Metaphors aren’t just a clever way to describe technology, they are also changing the way we think. When we click on a picture of a shopping cart it connects a complex set of technologies to represent a simple idea that we’re all familiar with. A heart icon under a photo is understood as an easy way to express appreciation. We aren’t required to understand how technology works, just how we interact with it. The ambiguity of metaphors, and the complexity of technology can also hide important realities about what is being described. “The cloud,” for example, actually consists of very real data centers, which consume huge amounts of natural resources to keep running. Meanwhile, pressing that heart icon on a photo is a signal to the artificial intelligences running in your app that you want to see more things like that photo and that it should adjust what it knows about you accordingly. There is a constant feedback loop between us and the digital technologies we use. We are constantly using them and they are changing us through their usage. Meaningful Technologies focuses on this loop from the perspectives of hermeneutic philosophy and cognitive science. Through the former, the authors examine meaning and how it changes over time. Through the latter, they gain understanding of how this feedback loop impacts individuals, especially in terms of learning and attention. Chown and Nascimento argue that, on the one hand, apps have a kind of agency never before possible in a technology, but also that, armed with a critical framework for examining such apps, we can regain some of our own agency. This book will appeal to scholars of digital media digital and computational studies, and those interested in issues related to ethical impacts of digital technologies.
Meaningless Suffering: Traumatic Marginalisation and Ethical Responsibility (Psychology and the Other)
by David M. Goodman M. Mookie C. ManaliliDoes suffering have meaning? The leading scholars and practitioners in Meaningless Suffering engage with this haunting human question through the lenses of psychoanalytic, phenomenological and ethical discourse, all the while holding contemporary social concerns in full view. The authors seek to find ways of speaking about the lived realities and historical moments that make up our social narratives – from the murder of George Floyd to the bird watching incident in Central Park – in order to render visible the entangled forms of the effects of embodiment, ideology, race, social practice, and intersectionality. Meaningless Suffering is bookended by powerful pieces by Mari Ruti and Homi K. Bhabha and, in the intervening chapters, the reader traverses the ideas of Augustine, Judith Butler, Fanon, Foucault, Freud, Gendlin, Heidegger, Lacan, Levinas, and Wittgenstein to pass through the realms of classical thought, affect theory, phenomenology, linguistic studies, relational psychoanalysis, somatic studies, intersubjectivity theory, gender studies, critical theory, and philosophical hermeneutics. This book is essential reading for postgraduate students, scholars, and practitioners working at the intersection of psychoanalysis, race, politics, and culture, as well as students of cultural studies, the humanities, politics, psychology, psychosocial studies, sociology, and social work.
Meanings & Co.: The Interdisciplinarity of Communication, Semiotics and Multimodality (Numanities - Arts and Humanities in Progress #6)
by Alin Olteanu Andrew Stables Dumitru BorţunThis book explores the interdisciplinarity of semiotics and communication studies, comprising both theoretical explorations and semiotic applications to communication with theoretical bearings. These disciplines have generally been understood as mutually implicit, but there still are many unexplored research avenues in this area, particularly on a conceptual level. The book offers broad insights into the epistemological relations between semiotics and other approaches to communication from perspectives such as sociology, philosophy of language and communication theory. As such, it sheds light on the communication of knowledge.Semiotics is currently enjoying increasing popularity within the humanities and social sciences. Understood as relational logic (Charles Peirce) or hermeneutics (structuralism and poststructuralism), semiotics fundamentally implies certain positions with regard to communication. Because of the generality and conceptual vagueness of semiosis and communication, how one elucidates the other is still an underexplored theme. With some pioneering studies of this relation, the books examines various fields, such as language, code, learning, embodiment, political communication, media, cinema, cuisine, multimodality and intertextuality.
Meanings Of Life
by Roy F. BaumeisterIn this extraordinary book, an eminent social scientist explores what empirical studies from diverse fields tell us about the human condition. Meanings of Life draws together evidence from psychology, history, anthropology, and sociology, integrating copious research findings into a clear and conclusive discussion of how people attempt to make sense of their lives. In a lively and accessible style, emphasising facts over theories, Baumeister explores why people desire meaning in their lives, how these meanings function, what forms they take, and what happens when life loses meaning. The volume includes a review of interdisciplinary literature that covers what the social sciences say about such matters as happiness, suffering, and death. It explores people's need for a sense of purpose, values, control over their lives, and a sense of self worth. Divorce and religious conversion are also examined. The book attempts to analyze the myths of fulfilment and higher meaning, illusions of eternity, the suppression of female sexuality, the failure of the work ethic, why death is more threatening to us than it was to our ancestors, and how suffering stimulates the quest for meaning. It demonstrates how happiness depends more upon one's interpretation than actual circumstances, and shows that the keys to happiness are attitude, judicious comparison, a bit of luck and a healthy dose of self-deception.
Meanings Of Life In Contemporary Ireland
by Tom InglisThe struggle to create and sustain meaning in our everyday lives is fought using cultural ingredients to spin the webs of meaning that keep us going. To help reveal the complexity and intricacy of the webs of meaning in which they are suspended, Tom Inglis interviewed one-hundred people in their native home of Ireland to discover what was most important and meaningful for them in their lives. Inglis believes language is a medium: there is never an exact correspondence between what is said and what is felt and understood. Using a variety of theoretical lenses developed within sociology and anthropology, Inglis places their lives within the context of Ireland's social and cultural transformations, and of longer-term processes of change such as increased globalisation, individualisation, and informalisation.
Meanings of Manual Work in Radical Education: The Chore Curriculum (Palgrave Studies in Alternative Education)
by Emily CharkinThis book aims to challenge and inspire readers with lived examples of alternatives to current paradigms in education, childhood and community, through new research into two important and neglected schools in the history of progressive and radical education. Kilguhanity and Wennington schools were both founded in the UK in 1940, and at both schools pupils and staff were extensively involved in the manual work of looking after and shaping the physical fabric of the community. The author uses these case studies to challenge the tendency to equate pupil participation with ‘voice’ and ‘meetings’, and casts light on a fault line within the progressive and radical traditions. She then presents new challenges and perspectives to ongoing debates about education and childhood, unsettling the stalemate between liberal and traditional, and progressive and radical schools by uncovering a community-based alternative. The book offers a contribution to a growing body of contemporary research literature on progressive and radical education, alternative education, informal education and social pedagogy as well as across the disciplines of childhood studies, history, philosophy and geography.
Meanings of Pain: Volume 2: Common Types of Pain and Language
by Simon Van RysewykExperiential evidence shows that pain is associated with common meanings. These include a meaning of threat or danger, which is experienced as immediately distressing or unpleasant; cognitive meanings, which are focused on the long-term consequences of having chronic pain; and existential meanings such as hopelessness, which are more about the person with chronic pain than the pain itself. This interdisciplinary book - the second in the three-volume Meanings of Pain series edited by Dr Simon van Rysewyk - aims to better understand pain by describing experiences of pain and the meanings these experiences hold for the people living through them. The lived experiences of pain described here involve various types of chronic pain, including spinal pain, labour pain, rheumatic pain, diabetic peripheral neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome, endometriosis-associated pain, and cancer-related pain. Two chapters provide narrative descriptions of pain, recounted and interpreted by people with pain.Language is important to understanding the meaning of pain since it is the primary tool human beings use to manipulate meaning. As discussed in the book, linguistic meaning may hold clues to understanding some pain-related experiences, including the stigmatisation of people with pain, the dynamics of patient-clinician communication, and other issues, such as relationships between pain, public policy and the law, and attempts to develop a taxonomy of pain that is meaningful for patients. Clinical implications are described in each chapter.This book is intended for people with pain, their family members or caregivers, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and policy makers.“It is my opinion that this ... work will stand as the definitive reference work in this field. I believe it will enrich the professional and personal lives of health care providers, researchers and people who have persistent pain and their family members. The combination of framework chapters with chapters devoted to analysing the lived experience of pain conditions gives the requisite breadth and depth to the subject.” - Dr Marc A. Russo, MBBS DA(UK) FANZCA FFPMANZCA, Newcastle, Australia, from the Foreword
The Meanings of Violence: From Critical Theory to Biopolitics (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)
by Gavin Rae Emma IngalaViolence has long been noted to be a fundamental aspect of the human condition. Traditionally, however, philosophical discussions have tended to approach it through the lens of warfare and/or limit it to physical forms. This changed in the twentieth century as the nature and meaning of ‘violence’ itself became a conceptual problem. Guided by the contention that Walter Benjamin’s famous 1921 ‘Critique of Violence’ essay inaugurated this turn to an explicit questioning of violence, this collection brings together an international array of scholars to engage with how subsequent thinkers—Agamben, Arendt, Benjamin, Butler, Castoriadis, Derrida, Fanon, Gramsci, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, and Schmitt—grappled with the meaning and place of violence. The aim is not to reduce these multiple responses to a singular one, but to highlight the heterogeneous ways in which the concept has been inquired into and the manifold meanings of it that have resulted. To this end, each chapter focuses on a different approach or thinker within twentieth and twenty-first century European philosophy, with many of them tackling the issue through the mediation of other topics and disciplines, including biopolitics, epistemology, ethics, culture, law, politics, and psychoanalysis. As such, the volume will be an invaluable resource for those interested in Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, History of Ideas, Philosophy, Politics, Political Theory, Psychology, and Sociology.
Means and Ends in Education (Routledge Revivals)
by Brenda AlmondFirst published in 1982, Means and Ends in Education explores the contrasts between approaches to teaching where teaching is simply a means to some other end; approaches in which the end determines the means; and approaches in which means and ends are integrated and education serves an intrinsic purpose. The book considers the concept of education and evaluates different processes and techniques of teaching and learning. Divided into three parts, it covers instrumentalist approaches, learner-oriented approaches, and liberal approaches to education. It puts forward differing views as to what the term ‘education’ means to different professions and in different contexts, and how different approaches result in a very different experience for the recipient. It also discusses the extent to which an evaluation of methods of education and an evaluation of the aims of education are linked. Means and Ends in Education will appeal to those with an interest in the philosophy of education.
Means Without End: Notes on Politics (Theory Out of Bounds #20)
by Giorgio AgambenAn essential reevaluation of the proper role of politics in contemporary life. In this critical rethinking of the categories of politics within a new sociopolitical and historical context, the distinguished political philosopher Giorgio Agamben builds on his previous work to address the status and nature of politics itself. Bringing politics face-to-face with its own failures of consciousness and consequence, Agamben frames his analysis in terms of clear contemporary relevance. He proposes, in his characteristically allusive and intriguing way, a politics of gesture—a politics of means without end.Among the topics Agamben takes up are the "properly" political paradigms of experience, as well as those generally not viewed as political. He begins by elaborating work on biopower begun by Foucault, returning the natural life of humans to the center of the polis and considering it as the very basis for politics. He then considers subjects such as the state of exception (the temporary suspension of the juridical order); the concentration camp (a zone of indifference between public and private and, at the same time, the secret matrix of the political space in which we live); the refugee, who, breaking the bond between the human and the citizen, moves from marginal status to the center of the crisis of the modern nation-state; and the sphere of pure means or gestures (those gestures that, remaining nothing more than means, liberate themselves from any relation to ends) as the proper sphere of politics. Attentive to the urgent demands of the political moment, as well as to the bankruptcy of political discourse, Agamben’s work brings politics back to life, and life back to politics.Giorgio Agamben teaches philosophy at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris and at the University of Macerata in Italy. He is the author of Language and Death (1991), Stanzas (1992), and The Coming Community (1993), all published by the University of Minnesota Press.
The Measure of Democracy: Polling, Market Research, and Public Life, 1930-1945
by Daniel RobinsonPoliticians, government officials, and public relations officers lean heavily on polling when fashioning public policy. Proponents say this is for the best, arguing that surveys bring the views of citizens closer to civic officials. Critics decry polling's promotion of sycophantic politicians who pander to the whims of public sentiment, or, conversely, the use of surveys by special interest groups to thwart the majority will. Similar claims and criticisms were made during the early days of polling. When George Gallup began polling Americans in 1935, he heralded it as a bold step in popular democracy. The views of ordinary citizens could now be heard alongside those of organized interest groups. When brought to Canada in 1941, the Gallup Poll promised similar democratic rejuvenation. In actual practice, traditionally disadvantaged constituencies such as women, the poor, French Canadians, and African Americans were often heavily underrepresented in Gallup surveys. Preoccupied with election forecasting, Gallup pollsters undercounted social groups thought less likely or unable to vote, leading to a considerable gap between the polling results of the sampled polity and the opinions of the general public. Examining the origins and early years of public opinion polling in Canada, Robinson situates polling within the larger context of its forerunners – market research surveys and American opinion polling – and charts its growth until its first uses by political parties.
The Measure of Madness: Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Delusional Thought (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology)
by Philip GerransDrawing on the latest work in cognitive neuroscience, a philosopher proposes that delusions are narrative models that accommodate anomalous experiences.In The Measure of Madness, Philip Gerrans offers a novel explanation of delusion. Over the last two decades, philosophers and cognitive scientists have investigated explanations of delusion that interweave philosophical questions about the nature of belief and rationality with findings from cognitive science and neurobiology. Gerrans argues that once we fully describe the computational and neural mechanisms that produce delusion and the way in which conscious experience and thought depend on them, the concept of delusional belief retains only a heuristic role in the explanation of delusion.Gerrans proposes that delusions are narrative models that accommodate anomalous experiences. He argues that delusions represent the operation of the Default Mode Network (DMN)—the cognitive system that provides the raw material for humans' inbuilt tendency to provide a subjectively compelling narrative context for anomalous or highly salient experiences—without the “supervision” of higher cognitive processes present in the nondelusional mind. This explanation illuminates the relationship among delusions, dreams, imaginative states, and irrational beliefs that have perplexed philosophers and psychologists for over a century.Going beyond the purely conceptual and the phenomenological, Gerrans brings together findings from different disciplines to trace the flow of information through the cognitive system, and applies these to case studies of typical schizophrenic delusions: misidentification, alien control, and thought insertion. Drawing on the interventionist model of causal explanation in philosophy of science and the predictive coding approach to the mind influential in computational neuroscience, Gerrans provides a model for integrative theorizing about the mind.