ABSTRACT
The revolution of cognitive neuroscience is sparking remarkable advances in understanding human thought and behaviour. The emerging discipline of cognitive science can help one to understand this challenge to their intellectual property system. The chapter provides an introduction to an approach the authors might call cognitive jurisprudence and explores its potential and its methodology. The advances of the cognitive revolution are reshaping many fields of study; it has a particular potential to foster a better understanding of questions of concern to law. The chapter reviews the approaches of neuroscience. Cognitive science is recasting how one think about emotion. The classic emotion/reason divide appears to be crumbling; rather, emotion, paired with other mental capacities, appears an important component in many domains of thought. The chapter suggests a five-part methodology for applying a cognitive jurisprudence approach to the study of law and of matters of interest to the law.
