The Metaphysics of Consciousness

This new collection of essays brings together leading contemporary philosophers of mind to re-examine the key question: what is consciousness?

Pierfrancesco Basile (Edited by), Julian Kiverstein (Edited by), Pauline Phemister (Edited by)

9780521173919, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 5 August 2010

296 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.42 kg

What is consciousness? What is the place of consciousness in nature? These and related questions occupy a prominent place in contemporary studies in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, often involving complex interdisciplinary connections between philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, biology and cognitive neuroscience. At the same time, these questions play a fundamental role in the philosophies of great thinkers of the past such as, among others, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, William James and Edmund Husserl. This new collection of essays by leading contemporary philosophers of mind and historians of philosophy seeks to address these questions from both a systematic and a theoretical perspective and to create a new and fruitful forum for future discussion. In the attempt to do justice to the richness of our mental life, the volume features in-depth examinations not solely of mainstream physicalist doctrines, but also of largely neglected positions such as Cartesian dualism, idealism and panpsychism.

1. Consciousness: don't give up on the brain Kenneth Aizawa
2. It must be true - but how can it be? Some remarks on panpsychism and mental composition Pierfrancesco Basile
3. How to become unconscious Stephen Clark
4. Time in consciousness, consciousness in time David Cockburn
5. Phenomenal holism Barry Dainton
6. Making sense of phenomenal unity: an intentionalist account of temporal experience Julian Kiverstein
7. Sprigge's ontology of consciousness Leemon McHenry
8. The representational vs. the relational view of visual experience Brian P. McLaughlin
9. The road to substance dualism Geoffrey Madell
10. Is there a metaphysics of consciousness without a phenomenology of consciousness? Some thoughts derived from Husserl's philosophical phenomenology Eduard Marbach
11. Quality, thought and consciousness Howard Robinson
12. Concessionary dualism and physicalism William Seager
13. Fundamental singleness: how to turn the 2nd paralogism into a valid argument Galen Strawson.

Subject Areas: Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology [HPJ]