Bibliography
The Animal Mind, James L. Gould and Carol Grant Gould, Scientific American Library (1994)
A beautifully illustrated and engaging exploration of the phylogeny of animal minds and the diversity of their modes of expression. Although it was published thirty years ago, it explores issues of central importance for the contemporary study of intelligence.
Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious, Antonio Damasio, Vintage Books (2021)
A leading neuroscientist explains the central role of feeling as the foundation for higher-order mental operations. Distinguishing non-explicit operations, mindedness, and self-awareness, Damasio illuminates the crucial role of the body in making minds consciousness.
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark
A fascinating window into the possible implications of artificial intelligence on the human future. Tegmark puts forward the provocative hypothesis that AI can transcend biological limitations, while also considering the moral, ethical, and practical challenges of such advances. The book also invites readers to answer these questions for themselves: the first step towards the democratization of these powerful technological advances.
The Phenomenon of Life: Toward a Philosophical Biology, Hans Jonas, Northwestern University Press (2001)
A systematic and comprehensive discourse on the ascending scale of perception and freedom of action across this history of life. Dissenting from the dualisms of modern philosophy, Jonas explains how the mind is prefigured in organic operations, culminating in human capacity for thought and morally responsible behavior in protecting the natural environmental order that has brought forth life itself.
A Brief History of Intelligence by Max Bennett
Bennett’s book is a comprehensive overview of the evolution of intelligence. Beginning with early evolution and working up phylogeny to the sophisticated organisms that roam Earth today, the book explore the major transition points in digestible but rigorous scientific detail. The book also shows how the field of artificial intelligence has repeatedly drawn inspiration from biological solutions to certain problems.
Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, fourth edition, by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig
A classic textbook for studying Artificial Intelligence, this book provides a broad but technical overview of the field of AI — past approaches and frontier advancements. With snippet and sections dedicated to the history of AI and possible implications for society, the book also provides thoughtful historical and philosophical context for discussions related to AI.
Cosmos: The World and the Glory of God, Louis Bouyer, St Bede’s Publications (1988)
A comprehensive theological overview of the relationship between the created order and human understanding. The eminent theologian, Louis Bouyer explains how our participation within cosmic materiality (an intelligible language of being) provides the foundations for our awareness and action within the full scope of physical and spiritual intelligence.
The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature, Leon R. Kass, University of Chicago Press (1994)
Physician and Bioethicist Leon Kass, discusses the qualities and characteristics of human intelligence that distinguish our species from our animal cousins. Through the customs, rituals, and taboos of the natural and cultural act of eating, profound truths about our human aspirations toward the true, the good, and the beautiful are disclosed.
The Runaway Brain: The Evolution of Human Uniqueness, Christopher Wills, Basic Books: Harper Collins Publications (1993).
Drawing on genetics, paleontology, and neurobiology, this fascinating volume explores the idea that our distinctive level of intelligent control over the world that has brought us forth has now become a potential liability and source of our own extinction.
The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, Mark Johnson, University of Chicago Press (1987)
Philosopher Mark Johnson explores how meaning, rationality, and understanding arise from patterns of our bodily experience. He shows how crucial aspects of our conceptual capacities emerge from physical experiences that are metaphorically extended to express abstract meanings and rational connections.
The Human Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes, Mortimer J. Adler, Fordham University Press (1967).
Addressing Darwin’s assertion of the continuity of human nature with the nature of other animals, Adler explores the question of a difference of degree verses a difference of kind as the foundation of human intellectual powers. Drawing on both philosophical perspectives and empirical evidence, and looking specifically at the nature of human language, he concludes that the unique human ability to employ propositional language clinches the distinguishing character of human intelligence.
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, Nick Bostrom, Oxford University Press (2014)
An exploration of the distinctive role of human general intelligence and its role in designing and building machine superintelligence. Viewed as the deepest challenge our species has ever faced, Bostrom discusses the importance of careful consideration and incorporation of human values into our technological productions in order to avoid existential catastrophe.
Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, A Report by the President’s Council on Bioethics, Harper Perennial (2003)
Drawing on specific biomedical interventions in the quest for happiness and human perfection, this thoughtfully constructed discussion of human nature and human purpose provides a broad frame for considering the personal and social impact of advancing technology on the human future.
Science and Religion in Search of Cosmic Purpose, John F. Haught, Georgetown University Press (2000)
An edited collection of thoughtful essays about “the question-raising and problem-solving power of the human mind,” and its role and relationship to wider issues of purpose within the universe.
Planta Sapiens: The New Science of Plant Intelligence, Paco Calvo, W.W. Norton & Company (2023)
A provocative exposition of largely unrecognized levels of intelligent operations in plants, including learning, communicating, and evidence of agency. This fascinating book challenges our definitions and categories in how we think about individual and ecological levels of intelligence.
The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard de Chardin, Harper Torchbooks (1953)
This well-know treatise by the eminent Jesuit paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin, is a classic text in the search for a coherent integration of evolutionary biology and Christian theology. This visionary work proposes a central role for human intelligence in the formation of what Chardin calls the Noosphere, the metaphysical/spiritual extension of a cosmic technological telos.
What Computers Still Can’t Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason, Hubert Dreyfus, The MIT Press (1979)
Grounded in considerations of the source and character of human intelligence, this influential text (first published in 1972, but still of great importance) reflect on the inherent inability of disembodied machines to mimic higher mental functions. This is a dense but deeply insightful reflection on the nature of human thought and language explored through the lenses of biological, psychological, epistemological, and ontological assumptions and informed by considerations of the role of the human body and the actual circumstances of life experience.
A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness, Merlin Donald, W.W. Norton and Company (2001)
In a readable exploration of the sources of human mental operation, the distinguished psychologist Merlin Donald proposes a hybrid model for the biological and social/cultural generation of the human mind. Transcending both naive notions of evolutionary psychology and simplistic analogies with information-processing computational devices, he illuminates the complex dynamics of organic beings and the importance of cognitive enculturation at the foundations of human intelligence.
A History of the Mind: Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness, Nicholas Humphrey, Copernicus (1999)
Theoretical psychologist and primate researcher, Nicholas Humphries, navigates a thoughtful reconsideration of how to understand the foundations of consciousness in the primary sensations of bodily being. This wide-ranging and beautifully written book draws from diverse streams of thought to provide what is at once a history and a journey into the future of the mind that illuminates the fundamental substrate of conscious thought and its evolutionary extensions.
The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood, James Gleick
History of Science Author James Gleick deep dives into the concept of information, beginning with its origins and tracing its evolution into the modern world. Gleick emphasizes key figures like Claude Shannon and Charles Babbage that made crucial contributions to our understanding of information. The book helps draw distinctions between information and knowledge, and raises important questions about the nature of information processing.
The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures, Antonio Damasio, Pantheon Books (2018)
In an earlier volume, Antonio Damasio wrote “The mind had to be first about the Body or it Could not have Been." In this gracefully written exposition, he explains how the most primary of survival mechanisms, the physiology of homeostasis, sets the foundations for feelings and emotions that are the infrastructure of the conscious mind.
Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour (Chapter on Intelligence) by David Myers
Myers’ book is a general and well known textbook on psychology, and the course draws upon the chapter on intelligence to inform our historical and social understanding of intelligence from the perspective of psychology. The book is also easy to read and engaging.
Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson
Exploring the life and mind of one of the most creative and intelligent people ever to live, Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo da Vinci is a case study of intelligence. Placing particular emphasis on creativity and the generative nature of the human mind, the book begins to reveal the inner processes and inspirations central to intelligence.