The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition

Albert Newen received his PhD in 1994 from the University of Bielefeld. He became associate professor in 2003 at Tübingen, changed to the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB) in 2007 and was appointed to full professor in 2010. He is director of the interdisciplinary Center for Mind, Brain and Cognitive Evolution since 2011. He received several research awards, including the Bennigsen-Foerder Award (North-Rhine Westfalia) as well as the award for "Philosophy in Psychiatry" from the society of psychiatry in Germany (DGPPN). He was visiting professor in Oxford, Stanford and Urbana-Champagne. His research combines philosophical theory formation with research in psychology, psychiatry and neurosciences Leon de Bruin (1979) obtained his PhD in philosophy from the University of Leiden in 2010 with an interdisciplinary study on social cognition. After his PhD, he worked as a postdoc at the Ruhr-University Bochum on the development of false belief understanding. He was appointed assistant professor of philosophy of mind at the Radboud University Nijmegen in 2012, and associate professor of philosophy of mind in 2017. Shaun Gallagher is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of Memphis. His areas of research include phenomenology and the cognitive sciences, especially topics related to embodiment, self, agency and intersubjectivity, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of time. Dr. Gallagher has a secondary research appointment at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is Honorary Professor at the University of Tromsø, Norway. He has held visiting positions at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge University; the Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen; the Centre de Recherche en Epistémelogie Appliquée (CREA), Paris; the Ecole Normale Supériure, Lyon; the Humboldt University in Berlin, and most recently at Keble College, University of Oxford.

What I like most about this book is that it is not just a collection of what 4E Cognition is, it is also a rigorous critique of what it is not: The final chapter in sections one to nine is a critical review of the preceding discussions, providing a balanced view of the topic area. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in cognition, not only to those interested in whether it is embodied, embedded, extended or enacted. The notion of 4E cognition does have its challenges, and this book does not shy away from this. I feel even those with a more critical view of 4E Cognition would enjoy The Oxford handbook of 4E Cognition, and certainly enjoy the critical chapters in each section. Overall, it presents the characterisation of cognition in a clear manner throughout, and while it is a comprehensive read at over 900 pages long, it is a very interesting read none-the-less. Nicholas J. Shipp, PhD, University of Hertfordshire, Hertfordshire, UK