Evan Thompson argues that mind isn’t a ghost in the machine or just brain activity—it’s something living systems do. Drawing on biology and philosophy, he shows how life and mind grow together, like vines on the same trellis, suggesting that to understand thinking, we must first understand living.

This was one of the first books to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science, arguing for connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduces a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book’s arguments are powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience.