The Nature of Consciousness

by Mark Rowlands

Overview

Mark Rowlands develops an innovative and radical account of the nature of phenomenal consciousness, with significant consequences for attempts to find a place for it in the natural order. He argues that the phenomenal aspects of conscious experience are aspects that exist only in the directing of experience towards non-phenomenal objects, a theory that undermines reductive attempts to explain consciousness in terms of what is not conscious. His book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the philosophy of mind and language, psychology, and cognitive science.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521808583
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/11/2001
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.75(d)
Lexile:	1340L (what's this?)

About the Author

Mark Rowlands is Lecturer in Philosophy at University College, Cork. His publications include Supervenience and Materialism (1995), Animal Rights (1998), The Body in Mind (1999) and numerous journal articles.

Table of Contents

Preface; 1. The problem of phenomenal consciousness; 2. Consciousness and supervenience; 3. The explanatory gap; 4. Consciousness and higher-order experience; 5. Consciousness and higher-order thoughts; 6. The structure of consciousness; 7. What it is like; 8. Against objectualism II: mistakes about the way things seem; 9. Consciousness and representation; 10. Consciousness and the natural order; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a book filled with scholarly argument, well-developed— but also well-defined— complex jargon, excellent critique of all the previous important works of the field (thought experiments included) and written by a philosophy lecturer. This book is required reading not only for those wanting to get to grips with what is going on in consciousness studies, but for those who are dissatisfied with the current accounts which...tend to base themselves on an objectualist thesis." Ion Georgiou, Metapsychology

"...the book deserves praise for setting out a detailed and well-argued case for actualism, and for making a forceful case for its transcendental nature in the context of mainstream, objectualist, analytical philosophy of mind." - Jacob Hohwy, Aarhus University, Denmark

From the Publisher