The Metaphysics of Consciousness

Front Cover
Pierfrancesco Basile, Julian Kiverstein, Pauline Phemister
Cambridge University Press, Aug 5, 2010 - Philosophy - 296 pages
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.

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Contents

How to Become Unconscious
21
The Road to Substance Dualism
45
How to Turn the 2nd Paralogism
61
Copyright

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About the author (2010)

Julian Kiverstein is a Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. The author of a number of papers on consciousness, temporality and the self, he is also editing Heidegger and Cognitive Science (2010, with Michael Wheeler) and Decomposing the Will (2010, with Till Vierkant and Andy Clark).

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