The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness

by Velmans

With fifty-five peer reviewed chapters written by the leading authors in the field, The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness is the most extensive and comprehensive survey of the study of consciousness available today.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science, Reference, Essays, Neuroscience, Psychology

768 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2006

Reviews

[Matthew Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

I attempted to read this anthology of academic essays on consciousness as a lay person to understand more of what's going on in the field. Some were very interesting, such as the philosophy metaphysics chapters on panpsychism and cosmopsychism, animal consciousness, the science of consciousness in dreams vs. waking states, and distinctions between different types of consciousness I'd never consider. Some were too dry or went way over my head. Chapter 13 seemed to border on pseudoscience, with the author of that chapter (Etzel Cardeña) weirdly overstating the evidence for things like ESP and telepathy, which made me question the other chapters and how well-regarded their authors are in their field. If you're not in the field, I'd suggest taking it with some skepticism and reading the chapters that are interesting to you. I didn't finish the entire collection myself.

[Carolina Nilsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent collection of articles on the topic of consciousness and some different aspects of it.