Download or read book Consciousness Revisited written by Michael Tye and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four major puzzles of consciousness philosophical materialism must confront after rejecting the phenomenal concept strategy. We are material beings in a material world, but we are also beings who have experiences and feelings. How can these subjective states be just a matter of matter? To defend materialism, philosophical materialists have formulated what is sometimes called "the phenomenal-concept strategy," which holds that we possess a range of special concepts for classifying the subjective aspects of our experiences. In Consciousness Revisited, the philosopher Michael Tye, until now a proponent of the the phenomenal-concept strategy, argues that the strategy is mistaken. A rejection of phenomenal concepts leaves the materialist with the task of finding some other strategy for defending materialism. Tye points to four major puzzles of consciousness that arise: How is it possible for Mary, in the famous thought experiment, to make a discovery when she leaves her black-and-white room? In what does the explanatory gap consist and how can it be bridged? How can the hard problem of consciousness be solved? How are zombies possible? Tye presents solutions to these puzzles—solutions that relieve the pressure on the materialist created by the failure of the phenomenal-concept strategy. In doing so, he discusses and makes new proposals on a wide range of issues, including the nature of perceptual content, the conditions necessary for consciousness of a given object, the proper understanding of change blindness, the nature of phenomenal character and our awareness of it, whether we have privileged access to our own experiences, and, if we do, in what such access consists.

Download or read book Consciousness Revisited written by Michael Tye and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four major puzzles of consciousness philosophical materialism must confront after rejecting the phenomenal concept strategy. We are material beings in a material world, but we are also beings who have experiences and feelings. How can these subjective states be just a matter of matter? To defend materialism, philosophical materialists have formulated what is sometimes called "the phenomenal-concept strategy," which holds that we possess a range of special concepts for classifying the subjective aspects of our experiences. In Consciousness Revisited, the philosopher Michael Tye, until now a proponent of the the phenomenal-concept strategy, argues that the strategy is mistaken. A rejection of phenomenal concepts leaves the materialist with the task of finding some other strategy for defending materialism. Tye points to four major puzzles of consciousness that arise: How is it possible for Mary, in the famous thought experiment, to make a discovery when she leaves her black-and-white room? In what does the explanatory gap consist and how can it be bridged? How can the hard problem of consciousness be solved? How are zombies possible? Tye presents solutions to these puzzles—solutions that relieve the pressure on the materialist created by the failure of the phenomenal-concept strategy. In doing so, he discusses and makes new proposals on a wide range of issues, including the nature of perceptual content, the conditions necessary for consciousness of a given object, the proper understanding of change blindness, the nature of phenomenal character and our awareness of it, whether we have privileged access to our own experiences, and, if we do, in what such access consists.

Download or read book Content and Consciousness Revisited written by Carlos Muñoz-Suárez and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-07-10 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the grounds for the distinction between the mental and the physical? What is it the relation between ascribing mental states to an organism and understanding its behavior? Are animals and complex systems vehicles of inner evolutionary environments? Is there a difference between personal and sub-personal level processes in the brain? Answers to these and other questions were developed in Daniel Dennett’s first book, Content and Consciousness (1969), where he sketched a unified theoretical framework for views that are now considered foundational in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. Content and Consciousness Revisited is devoted to reconsider the ideas and ideals introduced in Dennett’s seminal book, by covering its fundamental concepts, hypotheses and approaches and taking into account the findings and progress which have taken place during more than four decades. This book includes original and critical contributions about the relations between science and philosophy, the personal/sub-personal level distinction, intelligence, learning, intentionality, rationality, propositional attitudes, among other issues of scientific and philosophical interest. Each chapter embraces an updated approach to several disciplines, like cognitive science, cognitive psychology, philosophy of mind and cognitive psychiatry.

Download or read book Super Consciousness written by Colin Stanley and published by Watkins Media Limited. This book was released on 2019-12-10 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blending existential and occult thought, a highly acclaimed philosopher explains how we can find profound meaning and joy by inducing states of extreme awareness and emotion Throughout history there have been references and examples in literature, art and philosophy of an increased awareness of life while under the influence of extreme emotions. These have become known as Peak Experiences. Soon after Colin Wilson became aware of this phenomenon in the 1960s, he wondered about its history and how its power could be harnessed, and began a forty-year investigation. In Super Consciousness, we see how such luminaries as Yeats, Blake, Sartre, Nietzsche, and Robert Graves were affected by Peak Experiences, and how it has long been noted that we are least insightful when we are at our lowest ebb. By looking in detail through the different areas where this phenomenon has occurred—and by offering anecdotes and examples of how many people in history (as well as himself) were affected—Wilson reveals a pattern of insight with emotions. He ends the book with an instructional section on achieving power consciousness for yourself.

Download or read book Consciousness Reconsidered written by Owen J. Flanagan and published by Bradford Books. This book was released on 1992 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Owen Flanagan argues that we are on the way to understanding consciousness and its place in the natural order.

Download or read book Cosmic Consciousness Revisited written by Robert M. May and published by . This book was released on 1991-08-01 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining scholarship and spiritual depth, May portrays the develop. of the modern shift in the paradigm of human consciousness. He writes of the importance of the work of Richard Bucke, the father of Western Spiritual psychology, and the author of the landmark book, Cosmic Consciousness. He then proceeds to trace the subsequent develop. of the emerging spiritual and transpersonal psychologies and relates their evolution to the great spiritual traditions as well as to the future direction of human spiritual and psychological evolution. Of interest to all who seek to gain a contemporary and forward looking understanding of the spiritual nature of human existence.

Download or read book Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness written by Marcel Kuijsten and published by . This book was released on 2024-02-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why are gods and idols ubiquitous throughout the ancient world? What is the relationship of consciousness and language? How is it that oracles came to influence entire civilizations such as the ancient Greeks? If consciousness arose far back in human evolution, how can it so easily be altered in hypnosis and "possession"? Is modern schizophrenia a vestige of an earlier mentality? These are just some of the difficult questions addressed by Julian Jaynes's influential theory of the origin of subjective consciousness or the "modern mind." This book includes an in-depth biography of Julian Jaynes, essays by Jaynes, and the discussion and analysis of Jaynes's theory from a variety of perspectives such as clinical psychology, philosophy, neuroscience, anthropology, linguistics, and ancient history.

Download or read book The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness written by Dale Jacquette and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-25 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Descartes and Cartesian mind-body dualism in the 17th century though to 21st-century concerns about artificial intelligence programming, The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness presents a compelling history and up-to-date overview of this burgeoning subject area. Acknowledging that many of the original concepts of consciousness studies are found in writings of past thinkers, it begins with introductory overviews to the thought of Descartes through to Kant, covering Brentano's restoration of empiricism to philosophical psychology and the major figures of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Russell, Wittgenstein, Ryle and James. These opening chapters on the forces in the history of consciousness lay the groundwork needed to understand how influential contemporary thinkers in the philosophy of mind interpret the concept of consciousness. Featuring leading figures in the field, Part II discusses current issues in a range of topics progressing from the so-called hard problem of understanding the nature of consciousness, to the methodology of invoking the possibility of philosophical zombies and the prospects of reductivism in philosophy of mind. Part III is dedicated to new research directions in the philosophy of consciousness, including chapters on experiment objections to functionalism and the scope and limits of artificial intelligence. Equipped with practical research resources including an annotated bibliography, a research guide and a glossary, The Bloomsbury Companion to the Philosophy of Consciousness is an authoritative guide for studying the past, present and future of consciousness.

Download or read book Toward a Science of Consciousness written by Stuart R. Hameroff and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 820 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text originates from the second of two conferences discussing the concept of consciousness. In 15 sections, this book demonstrates the broad range of fields now focusing on consciousness.

Download or read book Pre reflective Consciousness written by Sofia Miguens and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-16 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pre-reflective Consciousness: Sartre and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind delves into the relationship between the current analytical debates on consciousness and the debates that took place within continental philosophy in the twentieth century and in particular around the time of Sartre and within his seminal works. Examining the return of the problem of subjectivity in philosophy of mind and the idea that phenomenal consciousness could not be reduced to functional or cognitive properties, this volume includes twenty-two unique contributions from leading scholars in the field. Asking questions such as: Why we should think that self-consciousness is non-reflective? Is subjectivity first-personal? Does consciousness necessitate self-awareness? Do we need pre-reflective self-consciousness? Are ego-disorders in psychosis a dysfunction of pre-reflective self-awareness? How does the Cartesian duality between body and mind fit into Sartre’s conceptions of consciousness?

Download or read book The Reflexive Nature of Consciousness written by Greg Janzen and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2008-03-27 with total page 199 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining phenomenological insights from Brentano and Sartre, but also drawing on recent work on consciousness by analytic philosophers, this book defends the view that conscious states are reflexive, and necessarily so, i.e., that they have a built-in, “implicit” awareness of their own occurrence, such that the subject of a conscious state has an immediate, non-objectual acquaintance with it. As part of this investigation, the book also explores the relationship between reflexivity and the phenomenal, or “what-it-is-like,” dimension of conscious experience, defending the innovative thesis that phenomenal character is constituted by the implicit self-awareness built into every conscious state. This account stands in marked contrast to most influential extant theories of phenomenal character, including qualia theories, according to which phenomenal character is a matter of having phenomenal sensations, and representationalism, according to which phenomenal character is constituted by representational content. (Series A)

Download or read book Theories of Consciousness written by William Seager and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-12 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite recent strides in neuroscience and psychology that have deepened understanding of the brain, consciousness remains one of the greatest philosophical and scientific puzzles. The second edition of Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction and Assessment provides a fresh and up-to-date introduction to a variety of approaches to consciousness, and contributes to the current lively debate about the nature of consciousness and whether a scientific understanding of it is possible. After an initial overview of the status and prospects of physicalism in the face of the problem of consciousness, William Seager explores key themes from Descartes - the founder of the modern problem of consciousness. He then turns to the most important theories of consciousness: identity theories and the generation problem higher-order thought theories of consciousness self-representational theories of consciousness Daniel Dennett’s theory of consciousness attention-based theories of consciousness representational theories of consciousness conscious intentionality panpsychism neutral monism. Thoroughly revised and expanded throughout, this second edition includes new chapters on animal consciousness, reflexive consciousness, combinatorial forms of panpsychism and neutral monism, as well as a significant new chapter on physicalism, emergence and consciousness. The book’s broad scope, depth of coverage and focus on key philosophical positions and arguments make it an indispensable text for those teaching or studying philosophy of mind and psychology. It is also an excellent resource for those working in related fields such as cognitive science and the neuroscience of consciousness.

Download or read book The Matter of Consciousness written by Torin Alter and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-03-02 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Torin Alter presents a compelling defence of the 'knowledge argument' against physicalism, pioneered by Frank Jackson. According to physicalism, consciousness is a physical phenomenon. The knowledge argument stars Mary, who learns all objective, physical information through black-and-white media and yet acquires new information when she first sees colors for herself: information about what it is like to see in color. Based partly on that case, Jackson concludes that not all information is physical. Alter argues that the knowledge argument succeeds in refuting all standard versions of physicalism: versions on which consciousness is grounded by what objective science reveals. Alter also argues that given further, plausible assumptions, the knowledge argument leads to Russellian monism, according to which there are intrinsic properties that both constitute consciousness and underlie properties described by physics, such as mass and charge. Alter explains how the knowledge argument establishes those two conclusions and defend it against numerous objections.

Download or read book Consciousness and Subjectivity written by Sofia Miguens and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues of subjectivity and consciousness are dealt with in very different ways in the analytic tradition and in the idealistic–phenomenological tradition central to continental philosophy. This book brings together analytically inspired philosophers working on the continent with English-speaking philosophers to address specific issues regarding subjectivity and consciousness. The issues range from acquaintance and immediacy in perception and apperception, to the role of agency in bodily ‘mine-ness’, to self-determination (Selbstbestimmung) through (free) action. Thus involving philosophers of different traditions should yield a deeper vision of consciousness and subjectivity; one relating the mind not only to nature, or to first-person authority in linguistic creatures–questions which, in the analytic tradition, are sometimes treated as exhausting the topic–but also to many other aspects of mind’s understanding of itself in ways which disrupt classic inner/outer boundaries.

Download or read book Introspection and Consciousness written by Declan Smithies and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-07-11 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The topic of introspection stands at the interface between questions in epistemology about the nature of self-knowledge and questions in the philosophy of mind about the nature of consciousness. What is the nature of introspection such that it provides us with a distinctive way of knowing about our own conscious mental states? And what is the nature of consciousness such that we can know about our own conscious mental states by introspection? How should we understand the relationship between consciousness and introspective self-knowledge? Should we explain consciousness in terms of introspective self-knowledge or vice versa? Until recently, questions in epistemology and the philosophy of mind were pursued largely in isolation from one another. This volume aims to integrate these two lines of research by bringing together fourteen new essays and one reprinted essay on the relationship between introspection, self-knowledge, and consciousness.

Download or read book Phenomenal Consciousness written by Dimitris Platchias and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can the fine-grained phenomenology of conscious experience arise from neural processes in the brain? How does a set of action potentials (nerve impulses) become like the feeling of pain in one's experience? Contemporary neuroscience is teaching us that our mental states correlate with neural processes in the brain. However, although we know that experience arises from a physical basis, we don't have a good explanation of why and how it so arises. The problem of how physical processes give rise to experience is called the 'hard problem' of consciousness and it is the contemporary manifestation of the mind-body problem. This book explains the key concepts that surround the issue as well as the nature of the hard problem and the several approaches to it. It gives a comprehensive treatment of the phenomenon incorporating its main metaphysical and epistemic aspects, as well as recent empirical findings, such as the phenomenon of blindsight, change blindness, visual-form agnosia and optic ataraxia, mirror recognition in other primates, split-brain cases and synaesthesia.

Download or read book Consciousness Inside and Out Phenomenology Neuroscience and the Nature of Experience written by Richard Brown and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-08-23 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is product of the third online consciousness conference, held at http://consciousnessonline.com in February and March 2011. Chapters range over epistemological issues in the science and philosophy of perception, what neuroscience can do to help us solve philosophical issues in the philosophy of mind, what the true nature of black and white vision, pain, auditory, olfactory, or multi-modal experiences are, to higher-order theories of consciousness, synesthesia, among others. Each chapter includes a target article, commentaries, and in most cases, a final response from the author. Though wide-ranging all of the papers aim to understand consciousness both from the inside, as we experience it, and from the outside as we encounter it in our science. The Online Consciousness Conference, founded and organized by Richard Brown, is dedicated to the rigorous study of consciousness and mind. The goal is to bring philosophers, scientists, and interested lay persons together in an online venue to promote high-level discussion and exchanging of views, ideas and data related to the scientific and philosophical study of consciousness.