Beckett and the cognitive method : mind, models, and exploratory narratives / Marco Bernini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bernini, Marco, author.

Series:

Cognition and poetics.

Cognition and poetics

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989.

Beckett, Samuel.

Cognition in literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

Does literature merely represent cognitive processes, or can it enhance, parallel, or reassess the scientific study of the mind? 'Beckett and the Cognitive Method' argues that Samuel Beckett's narrative work, rather than just expressing or rendering mental states, inaugurates an exploratory use of narrative as an introspective modeling technology. Through a detailed analysis of Beckett's entire corpus and published volumes of letters, this book argues that Beckett pioneered a new method of writing to construct (in a mode analogous to scientific inquiry) models for the exploration of core laws, processes, and dynamics in the human mind. Marco Bernini integrates frameworks from contemporary narrative theory, cognitive sciences, phenomenology, and philosophy of mind to make a case for Beckett's modeling practice.

Contents:

Cover

Beckett and the Cognitive Method

Copyright

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Modeling the Apparent Self

1.1. Awakening in the Bioscope: Wertheimer's Law, Predictive Self, and Chronotopic Groundlessness

1.2. A "Torrent of Meiosis": Fissions, Relations, and the "Pearl View" Explored

1.3. Introspection by Simulation: Inner Third-​Person, Polyphony, and Centerless Storyworlds

1.4. Toward the "Seed of Motion": Close and Beyond the Center of Narrative Gravity

2. A Brain Listening to Itself

2.1. Tracing a Phenomenological Continuum: From the Clinical to the Fictional

2.2. Theorizing a Modeling Continuum: From AVHs to Inner Speech

2.3. Detuning a Fundamental Sound: Mediacy, Co-​Modeling, and the Narrated Self

2.4. The Dialogic Cloud: On Memory and Co-​Presence

3. Synesthetic Innerscapes

3.1. Landscapes of Consciousness as Landscapes of Action: Quasi-​Perceptual Minds and the Basics of Innerscapes

3.2. Sculpting Latencies: Introspective Affordances, Narrativity, and Personal Geographies

3.3. Windows of Presence: Inner Ecologies and Dreamlike Worlds

3.4. "In the Night That Tells No Tales": Synesthesia, Narrative, Table Lamps, and Magic Lanterns

4. Cognitive Liminalism

4.1. The Principle of Liminality: Limens and Limes across Domains

4.2. Toward Cognitive Liminalism: Impeded Logomotion and Deflated Narrative Gravity

4.3. Residual Teleodynamics and Maximal Prediction Errors: E-​Motions, Absential Features, and Cognitive Impenetrability

4.4. Cognitive Conceptual Personae: Enacting Sense-​Making without Making Sense

5. Emergence and Complexity

5.1. Against the Aboutness of Complexity: From Narrative Chaotics to Blueprints for Emergence

5.2. Neural and Mental Complexity: A Matter of Levels

5.3. The Dynamic Core of the Onion: Patterns, Nodes, Signals, and Boundaries.

Conclusion: Toward a Phenomenogeology of Consciousness and the Co-​Modeling of Cognition

References

Beckett's Works Cited

Index.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2021.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780190664374

0190664371

9780190664381

019066438X

9780190664367

0190664363

OCLC:

1273974487