Originally published in 1926, the aim of this textbook was the ‘interpretation of human behaviour and conduct’. Beatrice Edgell is an important figure in the history of psychology. She was the first British woman to receive a PhD in psychology, the first female psychology professor in Britain and the first woman president of the British Psychological Society (1930-1931), of which she had been a founding member in 1901. As the Head of Psychology at Bedford College, she established one of the first psychological laboratories in the UK. She also taught a number of women who went on to become prominent in the field. One of her many publications this book was thought to be ‘suitable for students training for social work or for the general reader interested in educational and social questions’.

An argument that Modernism is a cognitive phenomenon rather than a cultural one. At the beginning of the twentieth century, poetry, music, and painting all underwent a sea change. Poetry abandoned rhyme and meter; music ceased to be tonally centered; and painting no longer aimed at faithful representation. These artistic developments have been attributed to cultural factors ranging from the Industrial Revolution and the technical innovation of photography to Freudian psychoanalysis. In this book, Samuel Jay Keyser argues that the stylistic innovations of Western modernism reflect not a cultural shift but a cognitive one. Behind modernism is the same cognitive phenomenon that led to the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century: the brain coming up against its natural limitations. Keyser argues that the transformation in poetry, music, and painting (the so-called sister arts) is the result of the abandonment of a natural aesthetic based on a set of rules shared between artist and audience, and that this is virtually the same cognitive shift that occurred when scientists abandoned the mechanical philosophy of the Galilean revolution. The cultural explanations for Modernism may still be relevant, but they are epiphenomenal rather than causal. Artists felt that traditional forms of art had been exhausted, and they began to resort to private formats—Easter eggs with hidden and often inaccessible meaning. Keyser proposes that when artists discarded their natural rule-governed aesthetic, it marked a cognitive shift; general intelligence took over from hardwired proclivity. Artists used a different part of the brain to create, and audiences were forced to play catch up.

In recent decades, issues that reside at the center of philosophical and psychological inquiry have been absorbed into a scientific framework variously identified as "brain science," "cognitive science," and "cognitive neuroscience." Scholars have heralded this development as revolutionary, but a revolution implies an existing method has been overturned in favor of something new. What long-held theories have been abandoned or significantly modified in light of cognitive neuroscience? Consciousness and Mental Life questions our present approach to the study of consciousness and the way modern discoveries either mirror or contradict understandings reached in the centuries leading up to our own. Daniel N. Robinson does not wage an attack on the emerging discipline of cognitive science. Rather, he provides the necessary historical context to properly evaluate the relationship between issues of consciousness and neuroscience and their evolution over time. Robinson begins with Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and continues through to René Descartes, David Hume, William James, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Derek Parfit. Approaching the issue from both a philosophical and a psychological perspective, Robinson identifies what makes the study of consciousness so problematic and asks whether cognitive neuroscience can truly reveal the origins of mental events, emotions, and preference, or if these occurrences are better understood by studying the whole person, not just the brain. Well-reasoned and thoroughly argued, Consciousness and Mental Life corrects many claims made about the success of brain science and provides a valuable historical context for the study of human consciousness.

"The author details a plan for helping individuals who have a mental health issue flourish in their lives"--

The Elemental Good Sense Guideis made up of basic observations I make about people and life, which I then turn into sayings. Elemental -- that's also my nickname, but it's actually more like "Ella Mental." You see: It changes the meaning entirely. Ella Watson is sensible to a fault. Thanks to the little nuggets of wisdom she collects in herGood Sense Guide,she's the perfect go-to girl for any friend in need. But when Ella has an argument with her best friend, Toby, her faithful guide falls short. Ella has been so focused on her friends that she's missed what's right in front of her face -- now she'll have to trade in sense for sensibility to mend her friendship.