Review of The Runaway Species

The Runaway Species is a great entry point into the ecosystem from which Worldview Ethics is arising. David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt present a wide and deep array of examples, each of which brings the reader a bit closer to the goal of understanding the sorts of things human minds and brains are. The pairing of a neuroscientist and a musician is a non-traditional one, but sometimes such combinations are the best way to generate new perspectives. New perspectives, Eagleman and Brandt argue, are a major component of what we do.

I was first introduced to The Runaway Species shortly after graduating from Texas State University with my Master’s degree. It may have been given to me in a goodie bag I received when I went back in 2018 to present Formal Dialectics to the Philosophy Dialogue Series but I do not remember for sure. The reason I had received the gift was because the philosophy department was to begin teaching it in undergraduate courses as a way of rapidly getting freshmen up to date with the sorts of things thinking makes possible these days. I took it home and though a few months went by before I read it, when I did I was immediately drawn to the delightful tension between the sheer volume of ideas the authors share and the singular subject matter of human consciousness’s manifold outputs.