num_pages: 304
description: In Plato's Camera eminent philosopher Paul Churchland offers a novel account of how the brain constructs a representation--or 'takes a picture'--of the universe's timeless categorical and dynamical structure. This construction process which begins at birth yields the enduring background conceptual framework with which we will interpret our sensory experience for the rest of our lives. But as even Plato knew to make singular perceptual judgments requires that we possess an antecedent framework of abstract categories to which any perceived particular can be relevantly assimilated. How that background framework is assembled in the first place is the motivating mystery and the primary target of Churchland's book. His account draws on the best of the recent philosophical literature on semantic theory and on the most recent results from cognitive neurobiology. The resulting story throws immediate light on issues that have been at the center of philosophy for a
language: English
title: Plato's Camera: How the Physical Brain Captures a Landscape of Abstract Universals
publisher: The MIT Press