The publishing house Springer, the fourth best scientific publishing house according to the Scholarly Publishers Indicators, has published the book Biology and Subjectivity: Philosophical Contributions to Non-reductive Neurosciencewhose origin is a symposium organized by the group 'Mind-Brain' of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra in 2011.

The volume speaks in favor of the contributions that Philosophy can make to non-reductive forms of neuroscientific research , which can further the explanatory progress of science while remaining faithful to the complexity of human mind and life.

Miguel García-Valdecasas, José Ignacio Murillo and Nathaniel F. Barrett, ICS researchers, have edited the volume. García-Valdecasas explained that this publication seeks to vindicate the importance of Philosophy for the progress of neuroscience in the face of its detractors.

According to researcher, "some consider that the language and concepts of Philosophy will be replaced by those of neuroscience". However, "the way forward in neuroscience is to respect the complexity of the phenomena of life and mind," he adds.

The volume has 10 chapters, in addition to the introduction, in which researchers from the USA, Germany, England and Spain have participated. "The book is result of an interdisciplinary work ," says García-Valdecasas, which is why he believes it will be of interest to philosophers, biologists and neuroscientists alike.

Chapters and authors

• 'Biology and Subjectivity: Philosophical Contributions to a Non-reductive Neuroscience', Murillo, José Ignacio (et al.).

• 'Self-Consciousness, staff Identity, and the Challenge of Neuroscience', Sturma, Dieter.

• Mind vs. Body and Other False Dilemmas of Post-Cartesian Philosophy of Mind', Klima, Gyula

• 'Hylomorphism: Emergent Properties without Emergentism', Jaworski, William.

• 'Remarks on the Ontology of Living Beings and the Causality of Their Behavior', Buchheim, Thomas.

• 'Does the Principle of Causal Closure Account for Natural Teleology?', García-Valdecasas, Miguel.

• 'Body, Time and Subject', Murillo, José Ignacio.

• 'The Enactive Philosophy of Embodiment: From Biological Foundations of Agency to the Phenomenology of Subjectivity', Stapleton, Mog (et al.).

• 'Radicalizing the Phenomenology of Basic Minds with Levinas and Merleau-Ponty', Bower, Matt.

• 'Mind and Value', Barrett, Nathaniel F.

• 'Ethics and Normativity', Cottingham, John.