Mental States and Conceptual Worlds

An account of perception is essential for an interpretation of memory, thought, and the mental state. The theory expounded in this book, developed from clinical studies of brain-damaged individuals, is a dynamic process account that departs from static computational models of the mind, with implications for our understanding of all aspects of mental function, including the mind/brain problem. The various topics are discussed in lengthy essays that cover such phenomena as imagery, reality and illusion, time and the present moment, subjectivity, will and agency, and psychoanalysis and group psychology.


""This is a courageous and innovative account of the human mind and its faculties--courageous because the author resists the temptation to reduce mind to brain, innovative because he draws his basic ideas from microgenesis, a process approach he developed over several decades of work as a neurologist. A fresh point of view with original insights that will inspire everyone interested in the big questions of psychology and the philosophy of mind.""
--Harald Atmanspacher, Collegium Helveticum

""There is no one who has consistently moved the dial forward on the understanding of cognition informed by process-relational thought as comprehensively and cogently as Jason Brown. This volume, with both philosophical as well as clinical relevance, is the mature work of someone who has devoted their intellectual life to this exploration. Microgenesis as a process theory explaining the dynamics of the mental life of the organism and the ordered evolution of mind/brain states that underpin the real vitality of the mind, receives its clearest, most thorough, and most convincing elucidation in this new tour-de-force--Mental States and Conceptual Worlds.""
--Gary Goldberg, Medical College of Virginia

""Since my own first encounter with Jason Brown's work over twenty years ago, even before I fully understood how microgenetic theory works, I have always felt quite sure that something profoundly important is at stake here. I can only hope, then, that a critical mass of those who read this book will agree.""
--Bruce D. MacQueen, author, from the Foreword


A professor of neurology at NYU Medical Center for almost thirty years, with teaching appointments at Columbia-Presbyterian and Albert Einstein Medical Centers and Rockefeller University in New York, Jason Brown has contributed widely to neuropsychology, theory of mind, and process philosophy. He is the author of sixteen books and over two hundred articles, and has served on the editorial boards of many journals in this field. He has received numerous fellowships and grants, and was awarded the Copernicus Prize for his work in neuropsychology.