John Sutton
Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.

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This page lists reviews of Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to connectionism, and provides extracts.
I'd be very grateful if you would email me if you find (or write) any other reviews.
Here's a link to a page covering citations and discussions of the book, and its treatment in online bibliographies.

Index of Reviews
Extracts from Reviews

Book Notice
    History of Science 37 (2000), p.492

Extracts from reviews
(in my selected quotations, of course, so take all this with a pinch of salt)

    ... John Suttons inspirierte und detaillerte Untersuchung ...
          Michael Kutzer, in Gesnerus 58 (2001)

    ... c'est un livre tres bien informe, original, et qui exhume toute une histoire ... un ouvrage tres riche, qui
    contient une mine d'apercus et d'informations, et qui, meme s'il est parfois trop ambitieux, montre que
    certains des problemes des sciences cognitives d'aujourd'hui ont des echos dans l'histoire de la philosophie
    naturelle de l'esprit.
            Pascal Engel, in Revue d'histoire des sciences 54 (2001)

  ... provides a valuable source of information about the historical animal spirits model as well as an
    informed commentary on the current scene. Philosophy and Memory Traces is a textbook example
    of how different periods in the history of theory construction can be meaningfully compared
    and contrasted.
            A.L. Wilkes, in Journal of Early Modern History 5 (2001)

    Sutton's underlying philosophy is, he says, "crudely characterisable as mechanism, naturalism,
    associationism, determinism, and reductionism", but he hopes to overcome humanist repugnance to
    these doctrines by "adding a sense of history, culture, and play" (pp.2-3). His tendency to take a playful,
    aesthetic, and polemical approach to his material, however, often gets in the way of engaging
    philosophical issues in a careful and sustained way. His approach to the problems that the unruly animal
    spirits were thought to raise for human beings' rational and moral capacities is heavily influenced by
    postmodernist and feminist thought, and he tends to poke fun at those who worried about maintaining
    control over their animal nature, drawing on Foucault's theory of madness, which probably accounts for
    his pervasive use of sexual metaphors ...

    Finally, Sutton seems to have succumbed to a postmodern attitude of indifference to (or despair of the
    possibility of) any sort of objectivity. For example, he says that history of science "demands unbalanced
    judgement, polemic, and selective evaluation" (p.31), and that his historical studies "build on and twist
    existing research" (p. xiii).
           Celia Wolf-Devine, in Review of Metaphysics, forthcoming, December 2001

     For most of the book Sutton, in fact, successfully steers his way between these twin perils. His discussion
    of historical materials is for the most part judicious and sensitive to context. He manages to expand upon
    what may seem a narrow and technical issue to show how discourse about memory was implicated in and
    contributed to cultural concerns with the nature of agency, control, and identity. "Notions about selves,"
    Sutton maintains, "in relation to natural and social worlds are always implicated in theorising about
    memories" (p. 13). While localist models of memory were supportive of a strong executive self presiding
    over a stable and credible stock of recollections, more dynamic theories of how memories were created
    and sustained carried disturbing intimations. If memories were--quite literally--fluid, then error, illusion,
    and even fantasy might hold sway; the integrity of the self could dissolve amid the swirling of the spirits.

    ... Sutton concentrates on treatments of animal spirits in English natural philosophy. He argues that a
    special concern with memory was part of a more general preoccupation with order in the aftermath of
    the civil war and the heady days of the Commonwealth. In this context there was a felt need for discipline
    and stability within the body as well as within society. Theories that undermined these values were
    deemed immoral as well as erroneous.

    Rather than developing these themes, Sutton asks "what use is all this history?" (p. 149). His answer is
    that a historical perspective can illuminate the issues involved in the choice between distributed and
    local theories of memory, even though the distinction would not have been intelligible to the historical
    actors themselves. Such an approach is somewhat frustrating to the historian; others must judge its
    philosophical utility. Nonetheless, this book does suggest a range of avenues for further research: the
    discussion of John Locke's theory of personal identity is especially stimulating.
        L. S. Jacyna, in Bulletin of the History of Medicine 74.4 (2000) 822-823

        ... Sutton's ambitious thesis is well-served by his facility with primary and secondary sources in natural
        philosophy, history of science, cognitive science, and cognitive philosophy. He writes clearly, often
        gracefully, and the result is a tour de force. It may also be sui generis; at least, I have not encountered
        another contemporary philosophy or history text that attempts to give equal value to both perspectives.

        ... Sutton's arguments are brilliant, but his highly selective interrogation of the past raises questions,
        of which this review has space to raise just one ...
           Robert Martensen, in Early Science and Medicine 5.3 (2000), 314-5.

        ... Just as earlier theorists tried to make the physiology of memory fit into the mould of their
        moral and social ideals, Sutton argues, contemporary theorists impose strictures on accounts
        of memory because of preconceived ideas of the role of memory in systematic reasoning and
        possession of knowledge of the past.
           Christoph Hoerl, in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51.4 (2000), 923-6

        ... Memory has not played a central role in general histories of the seventeenth-century English
        response to Cartesianism, so readers may be surprised to learn how important concerns about it
        were at the time. ... [N]atural philosophers in England were very aware of Descartes' animal-spirits
        theory of corporeal memory (even before 1662), and considerable discussion focused explicitly on
        the question whether it could guarantee reliability and responsibility. ... Sutton attempts to show
        that resistance to Descartes' theory was not to his mechanistic physiology in general, but to his
        non-localist model of the memory trace, which posed a threat to accepted notions of self-control
        and personal identity.

        Chapter 7 presents a novel and substantive historical hypothesis about Locke ... Sutton has performed
        a service in recovering old debates about the physiology of memory from current neglect. ... It is a
        general weakness of the book that it contains very little argument. Most passages attempt to
        persuade by a breezy combination of suggestion, casual references to works of other authors, and
        verbal repetition. Far too many topics are addressed; very few are given careful and fully satisfying
        consideration.

        ... While the book is not well written, and fails as an argument for the truth or adequacy of
        connectionism in general, it is a rich source of historical detail, based on the author's very wide reading
        of the literature on memory. The 44-page bibliography is a valuable resource.
           Carol Skrenes, in Dialogue 39 (2000), 400-402

        ... Sutton attempts in Chapter 3 to reclaim Descartes from present-day rationalists (e.g., Fodor, Chomsky)
        by re-interpreting his speculative brain physiology as a precursor to present-day distributed models of
        memory.  Sutton repeatedly attempts to distance himself from the anachronistic implications of such
        a project, but this is difficult to countenance.  The chapter only makes sense as an attempt at
        "discipline building" by appropriating an authoritative historical figure to the side of neurophilosophy.
        But still, the chapter should not be dismissed.  Sutton has important points to make, and his attempt
        to make sense of Descartes' physiology is welcome  Sutton also carefully outlines pre-emptive replies
        to the most obvious criticisms of his interpretation.  There can be little doubt, however, that the
        motivation at work is more about rhetorical strategy than about gaining insight into Descartes' thought.

        ... Many aspects of this book -- especially the chapters on Descartes and Locke -- are interesting.  In the
        end, however, I found it unconvincing.  I wonder exactly which constituency Sutton was writing for.
        Those from the "localist" tradition are likely to regard it as a transparent attempt to extract historical
        authority for connectionism from tendentious re-interpretations of past eminent philosophers.  The
        connectionist community might be less critical because he's on their "side," but Sutton's sometimes-
        florid style and Wittgensteinian sensibilities will not resonate well there.  Finally, Wittgensteinian
        critics of all attempts at cognitive science are not likely to be convinced by Sutton's efforts to set
        connectionism apart from other modes of "objective" mental modeling.  Connectionism does little
        to address either the normative issues involved, or the (correct) impression that, in the final analysis,
        connectionist network are every bit as mechanistic as the localist, symbolic models they aspire to
        displace.
       Christopher Green, in International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 14.3, 2000, 329-333

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Last updated 27 April 2005

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