Representation and identity - convergence of brain research and mind-brain philosophy

The localization or representation of mental abilities in the brain have always been considered as key questions for understanding the organization of the human nervous system. Particularly with the advent of modern electrophysiological and imaging techniques that provide maps of electromagnetic fields and metabolic processes on the living central nervous system, the representation theory is experiencing a scientific renaissance in neurology, but is only one theory, however, in the succession of a long philosophical tradition dealing with the possible identification of mental phenomena and brain processes. This dichotomy was formulated at the latest in the Cartesian dualism of res cogitans and res extensa of the mind-body problem. Nowadays philosophical discussion, on the contrary, is dominated by monistic concepts that attempt to explain the mental realm on an organic foundation in order not to succumb to the problem of a psychophysical dualism. Of these, the identity theory offers a philosophically plausible concept postulating that the identity of brain conditions and mental phenomena is based on organic foundations. In this theory, the efforts of brain research converge on the representations of mental phenomena in the human nervous system. In a comprehensive approach, both concepts could complement each other.     

Book reviews

Australian Politics

Douglas Blackmur, Strikes: Causes, Conduct and Consequences (Sydney: The Federation Press, 1993) pp.232 $n.p. ISBN 1 86287 114 0.

W.D. Borrie, The European Peopling of Australasia (Canberra: Demographic Program, RSSS, Australian National University, 1994) pp.403 $24.50 ISBN 0 7315 1860 8.

Deborah Brennan, The Politics of Australian Child Care: From Philanthropy to Feminism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.242 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 41792 9.

Peter Gathercole, T.H. Irving and Gregory Melleuish (eds), Childe and Australian Archaeology, Politics and Ideas (Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1995) pp.241 $16.95 ISBN 0 7022 26130.

Gerard Henderson, Menzies’ Child: The Liberal Party of Australia (Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1994) pp.382 $29.95 ISBN 1 86373 747 2.

Dean Jaensch, Election! How and why Australia votes (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1995) pp.155 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 761 8.

John Murphy, Harvest of Fear: A History of Australia's Vietnam War (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1993) pp.335 $19.95 ISBN 1 86373 49 X.

Bron Stevens and John Wanna (eds), The Goss Government: Promise and Performance of Labor in Queensland (Melbourne: Macmillan Education Australia, 1993) pp.292 $29.95 ISBN 0 7329 2622 X.

Beverley Symons (compiled with Andrew Wells and Stuart Macintyre), Communism in Australia: A Resource Bibliography (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1994) pp.281 $25.00 ISBN 0 642 10625 8.

W.A. Townsley, Tasmania: Microcosm of the Federation or Vassal State 1945–1983 (Hobart: St David's Park Publishing, 1994) pp.451 $n.p. ISBN 0 7246 2345 0.

Comparative and International Politics

David Baldwin (ed.), Neorealism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993) pp.377 $US56.50 ISBN 0 231 08440 4.

Leon Brittan, Europe. The Europe We Need (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1994) pp.248 $35.95 ISBN 0 261 00249 4.

Desmond Dinan, Ever Closer Union? An Introduction to the European Community (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.532 $US19.95 ISBN 1 55587 388 X.

Francis G. Castles (ed.), Families of Nations: Patterns of Public Policy in Western Democracies (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1993) pp.353 £37.50 ISBN 1 85521 345 1.

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Civil War (Granta Books: London, 1994) pp.144 $14.95 ISBN 0 14 014094 8.

Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations: in the world of the 1990s (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2nd ed., 1995) pp.417 $34.95 ISBN 0 522 84657 2.

S. Henningham and R.J. May (eds), Resources, Development and Politics in the Pacific Islands (Bathurst: Crawford House Press, 1992) pp.323 $24.95 ISBN 186333063 1.

Helen Hughes, Wolfgang Kasper and John Macleod, Australia's Asian Challenge (Sydney, The Centre for Independent Studies, CIS Policy Forums 12, 1994) pp.47 $7.95 ISBN 1 86432 000 1.

Fergal Keane, The Bondage of Fear: A Journey Through the Last White Empire (London: Viking, 1994) pp.242 £17.00 ISBN 0 670 85391 7.

Bradley S. Klein, Strategic Studies and World Order: The Global Politics of Deterrence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.196 £11.95 ISBN 0 521 46644 X.

Roy Licklider (ed.), Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New York: New York University Press, 1993) pp.354 $US50.00 ISBN 0 8147 5070 2.

Andrew Maclntyre (ed.), Business and Government in Industrialising Asia (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.312 $29.95 ISBN 186373 556 9.

Michael McKinley, The Gulf War: Critical Perspectives (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994) pp.201 $24.95 ISBN 1 86373 606 9.

Robert F. Miller (ed.), The Development of Civil Society in Communist Systems (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992) pp.197 $22.95 ISBN 1 86373 1717.

Kim Richard Nossal, Rain Dancing: Sanctions in Canadian and Australian Foreign Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994) pp.323. $US21.95 ISBN 0 8020 7571 1.

Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995) pp.378 $US35 ISBN: 0 300 05963 9.

Dennis J.D. Sandole and Hugo van der Merwe (eds), Conflict Resolution, Theory and Practise: Integration and Application (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) pp.298 $55.00 ISBN 0 7190 3748 4.

Jan Aart Scholte, International Relations of Social Change (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993) pp.186 $45.00 ISBN 0 335 09329 9.

Susan L. Shirk, How China Opened its Door: The Political Successes of the PRC's Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms (Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 1994) pp.120 $US28.95 ISBN 0 8157 7854 6.

Stephen John Stedman (ed.), South Africa: The Political Economy of Transition (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.213 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 421 5.

Lionel Cliffe et al, The Transition to Independence in Namibia (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1994) pp.293 $US38.00 ISBN 1 55587 420 7.

Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China: Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950–1965. 2nd edn (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 1993) pp.594 $US27.95 ISBN 1 56324 227 3.

Luke Trainor, British Imperialism and Australian Nationalism: manipulation, conflict and compromise in the late nineteenth century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) pp.213 $29.95 ISBN 0 521 43476 9.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, The State of the World's Refugees: The Challenge of Protection (London: Penguin, 1993) pp.191 $19.95 ISBN 0 14 023487.

Joyce N. Wiley, The Islamic Movement of Iraqi Shias (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1992) pp.193 $US30.00 ISBN 1 55587 2727.

David W. Ziegler, War, Peace and International Politics, 6th ed. (London: Harper Collins, 1993) pp.458 $n.p. ISBN 0 673 52287 3.

Political Theory and Methodology

Stephen Eric Bronner, Of Critical Theory and Its Theorists (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994) pp.372 $45.00 ISBN 0 631 18738 3.

William James Booth, Patrick James and Hudson Meadwell (eds), Politics and Rationality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) pp.307 $39.95 ISBN 0 521 43568 4.

Richard Sylvan and David Bennett, The Greening of Ethics: From Human Chauvinism to Deep‐Green Theory (Cambridge, UK: White Horse Press, 1994) pp.269 £11.95 ISBN 0 8165 1529 8.

Danilo Zolo, Democracy and Complexity: A Realist Approach. David McKie (trans.) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992) pp.202 $39.95 ISBN 0 7456 0675 X.     

Experimental Boat and Ship Archaeology: Principles and Methods

The need for experiments to study physical aspects of craft of the past is stated, as well as the necessity for them to have clear aims and to follow the established principles of scientific enquiry. These principles are discussed in this joint paper by ten maritime archaeologists and others, together with methods and some points of management critical to their application in this field.     

Random Time Sampling

Random Time Sampling is an innovative data collection method which has potential for adaptation and use by geographers. Individual pocket-sized programmable beepers were used in a pilot study of the uses of time by older households and older people's attitudes to different activities. Random beeps were used to prompt individuals living in eleven Melbourne suburbs to record time use data in diaries over a period of a week. The method proved extremely effective and reliable, and many participants reporting that they enjoyed the exercise.     

Morphological Impacts and Implications of a Trial Release on the Wingecarribee River,New South Wales

A trial, monitored release on the Wingecarribee River over 27 days had a peak discharge below the Wingecarribee Dam of 1090 ML/d, which had a flow duration of 0.95 per cent. Morphological impacts on 29 km of channel below the dam included bank erosion, concentrated neck overflow, bed degradation and channel widening at recent cutoffs, sedimentation in weir pools and overbank flow, particularly at discharges greater than 800 ML/d. Prolonged operational releases at bankfull discharge (400–800 ML/d) will have the greatest morphologic impacts and should be avoided. Pulses which dissipate stream power over a broad, well-vegetated floodplain should be incorporated in the operational release policy, provided such pulses are phased to facilitate channel and vegetation recovery.     

Origin and Collapse of Complex Societies in Oaxaca (Mexico): Evaluating the Era from 1965 to the Present

I summarize recent archaeological work in Oaxaca, Mexico, with a focus on questions central to world prehistory: the origin and collapse of complex societies. Monte Albán was the capital of an emerging civilization in the southern highlands of Mexico during the second half of the first millennium B.C. Soon after the foundation of the ancient city, there is evidence for state formation and a political expansion into regions outside the Valley of Oaxaca. Centuries later, Monte Albán went into decline, giving way to the competing small polities found throughout Oaxaca at the time of the Spanish conquest. Since the late 1960s, our knowledge of these changes has been transformed by study of Oaxaca's pre–Monte Albán past, regional settlement surveys, and processual model building. Evolutionary and historical perspectives allow for significant refinement of current debates surrounding the rise and fall of complex societies in Oaxaca.