This is

This is Philosophy Bites with me David Edmonds

And me, Nigel Warburton.

Philosophy Bites is available at

W.w.

Philosophy Bites.com.

Neuroscience is undergoing a revolution.

We're working out more and more about how the brain functions,

and some of what we're discovering is pretty weird.

philosophers have long used thought experiments to work out questions about personal identity

or the link between mind and body.

But Barry Smith, the director of the Institute of Philosophy, says that philosophers should pay more

attention to actual experiments.

Barry Smith, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Hi Nigel.

We're going to focus on neuroscience and its impact on philosophy.

I wonder if you could begin by giving a sort of overview of what's happening in

neuroscience as relevant to philosophy. I think it's exciting times for philosophy because whereas traditionally philosophers have concentrated on looking at the mind from within the armchair,

now they have the access to new experimental studies using brain imaging and also to neurological evidence of patients with certain kinds of neurological damage

showing us things about the mind that philosophers originally thought were impossible.

And I think the other exciting thing is that modern cognitive neuroscience is not reductionist.

We're not trying to do away with our description of ourselves as persons and thinkers having beliefs, desires, experiences, and so on.

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