[from Gary Cziko 9709xx]
Although I was not unable to attend the CSG meeting this summer and have
not been very active on CSGnet (other than keeping it running!), I am still
very interested in PCT and exploring its broad implications for
understanding behavior.
My continued interest is reflected in the book I am currently completing
and which is being considered for publication by MIT Press. However, MIT
Press is having trouble finding individuals who feel competent to review my
book manuscript, most saying that they do not know enough about control
theory to be a competent reviewer concerning the publishability of the
manuscript.
Since I suspect that most of the world's behavioral and social scientists
who understand control theory are on CSGnet, I thought I would make a
request here for book reviewers, especially since I know that more than at
least a few CSGnetters are interested in and knowledgeable about evolution,
the second major topic of the book.
I believe that MIT Press pays a couple of hundred dollars to review a book
manuscript and judge its suitability for publication. In addition, I
believe that reviewers also receive a free copy of the book when published.
And lastly but not leastly, you would get to read my book many months
before others are able to partake of its wisdom!
To this message I have appended a summary of the two major arguments of
_The Things We Do_ along with its Table of Contents. The introductory
chapter can be found at
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/facstaff/g-cziko/TWDintro.html.
If you interested in participating in this process (and thereby potentially
making PCT more accessible to a wide range of readers, as well as helping
to improve my book), please contact Michael Rutter (rutter@mit.edu) at MIT
Press. Let him know of your interest and what your professional or
academic status is (since reviewers must have academic, professional and/or
publication credentials to impress the MIT Press editorial board).
I should add that all such reviews are blind (from my perspective), so you
need not be concerned about offending me with your review and thereby
incurring the wrath and fury of the CSGnet god.--Gary
···
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THE THINGS WE DO
Using the Insights of Darwin and Bernard
to Understand the What, Why and How of Our Behavior
Gary Cziko
Summary of the Book's Two Major Arguments
The first major argument of the book is that theories of animate behavior
have evolved from older theories that were psychic and purposeful to
current theories which are predominantly materialist and purposeless.
However, behavior can now be properly understood as being both materialist
AND purposeful. Such an understanding of the materialist and yet
purposeful nature of behavior has it roots in the physiological phenomenon
of self-regulation discovered by the 19th-century French physiologist
Claude Bernard and exists today in its modern form of perceptual control
theory as developed by William T. Powers and his associates.
The second major argument of the book is that a proper understanding of
animate behavior requires abandoning the Newtonian cause-effect model which
continues to dominate theories of behavior today in the behavioral and
social sciences. In its place, two very non-Newtonian theories, Darwinian
evolution and perceptual control theory, provide new insights for
understanding the ultimate and proximate causes of our behavior.
Table of Contents
0. Preface
1. Introduction & Overview
Part I. Theories of Behavior: From Psychic and Purposeful to Materialist
and Purposeless
2. Philosophical Perspectives on Behavior: From Animism to Materialism and
Everything in Between
3. Psychological Perspectives on Behavior: From Purposeful to Purposeless
Part II. Purpose Without Spirit: From Constancy of the Internal Environment
to Perceptual Control of the External Environment
4. A Biological Perspective on Purpose: The Physiology of Bernard and Cannon
5. The Engineering of Purpose: From Water Clocks to Cybernetics
6. A Psychological Perspective on Purpose: Organisms as Perceptual Control
Systems
III. Behavior and Evolution: Then and Now
7. The Evolution of Animal Behavior: The First Darwinian Revolution
8. The Evolution of Human Behavior: The First Darwinian Revolution Extended
9. The Human Brain as an Evolution Machine: The Second Darwinian Revolution
Part IV. Darwin and Bernard Meet Psychology: Implications and Applications
10. Behavioral Science and the Newtonian Trap
11. Applying Darwin and Bernard to Psychological Theory, Research, and Practice