Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists examine the will and its pathologies from theoretical and empirical perspectives, offering a conceptual overview and discussing schizophrenia, depression, prefrontal lobe damage, and substance abuse as disorders of volition.Science tries to understand human action from two perspectives, the cognitive and the volitional. The volitional approach, in contrast to the more dominant "outside-in" studies of cognition, looks at actions from the inside out, examining how actions are formed and informed by internal conditions. In Disorders of Volition, scholars from a range of disciplines seek to advance our understanding of the processes supporting voluntary action by addressing conditions in which the will is impaired. Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists examine the will and its pathologies from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, offering a conceptual overview and discussing specific neurological and psychiatric conditions as disorders of volition.After presenting different conceptual frameworks that identify agency, decision making, and goal pursuit as central components of volition, the book examines how impairments in these and other aspects of volition manifest themselves in schizophrenia, depression, prefrontal lobe damage, and substance abuse.
Contributors
George Ainslie, Tim Bayne, Antoine Bechara, Paul W. Burgess, Anna-Lisa Cohen, Daniel Dennett, Stéphanie Dubal, Philippe Fossati, Chris Frith, Sam J. Gilbert, Peter Gollwitzer, Jordan Grafman, Patrick Haggard, Jay G. Hull, Marc Jeannerod, Roland Jouvent, Frank Krueger, Neil Levy, Peter F. Liddle, Kristen L. Mackiewitz, Thomas Metzinger, Jack B. Nitschke, Jiro Okuda, Adrian M. Owen, Chris Parry, Wolfgang Prinz, Joëlle Proust, Michael A. Sayette, Werner X. Schneider, Natalie Sebanz, Jon S. Simons, Laurie B. Slone, Sean A. Spence
Natalie Sebanz is Associate Professor at Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegan, the Netherlands.
Wolfgang Prinz is Director Emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, and the author of Open Minds: The Social Making of Agency and Intentionality (MIT Press, 2012).
Wolfgang Prinz is Director Emeritus of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Science in Leipzig, and the author of Open Minds: The Social Making of Agency and Intentionality (MIT Press, 2012).
Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor Codirector of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He is the author of Brainchildren: Essays on Designing Minds; Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness; Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting; Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness (all published by the MIT Press), From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Mind, and other books.
Natalie Sebanz is Associate Professor at Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegan, the Netherlands.
Thomas Metzinger is Professor of Philosophy and Fellow at the Gutenberg Research College at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Mainz, and an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Study in Frankfurt am Main. He is the editor of Neural Correlates of Consciousness and the author of Being No One, both published by the MIT Press.
