Skillful Coping

For fifty years Hubert Dreyfus has addressed an astonishing range of issues in the fields of phenomenology, existentialism, cognitive science, and the philosophical study of mind. Dreyfus has inspired a whole generation of philosophers as he has creatively drawn on and clearly articulated the seminal works of thinkers like Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Foucault. This volume presents a selection of Dreyfus's most influential essays on mind and action. The book begins with a model of skillful engaged human action, which informs much of Dreyfus's philosophy, and was developed in collaboration with Stuart Dreyfus. The volume then presents articles developing a critique of the representational model of the mind in analytical philosophy of mind and mainstream cognitive science. Dreyfus argues that representational models of mind offer an impoverished and distorting account of human engagement with the world. The chapters show this by addressing issues in philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences through the skill model. Wrathall has done an admirable job of assembling papers that, taken together, offer a remarkably cohesive picture of Dreyfus's position as it has developed over the years ... [the volume] succeeds in showing the development and extent of Dreyfus's view of practical intelligence as skillful coping in a fuller light than any of the essays taken by itself would be able to ... an important contribution. Leslie MacAvoy, Notre Dame Philosophical ReviewsSECTION ONE: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF SKILLS ; SECTION TWO: INTENTIONALITY AND MIND ; SECTION THREE: PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE HUMAN SCIENCES ; SECTION FOUR: EMBODIED COPING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE