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The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates
Intended for anyone attempting to find their way through the large and confusingly interwoven philosophical literature on consciousness, this reader brings together most of the principal texts in philosophy (and a small set of related key works in neuropsychology) on consciousness through 1997, and includes some forthcoming articles. Its extensive coverage strikes a balance between seminal works of the past few decades and the leading edge of philosophical research on consciousness.As no other anthology currently does, The Nature of Consciousness provides a substantial introduction to the field, and imposes structure on a vast and complicated literature, with sections covering stream of consciousness, theoretical issues, consciousness and representation, the function of consciousness, subjectivity and the explanatory gap, the knowledge argument, qualia, and monitoring conceptions of consciousness. Of the 49 contributions, 18 are either new or have been adapted from a previous publication.
885 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1997
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437 people want to read
About the author
Ned Block
18 books28 followersNed Joel Block (born 1942) is an American philosopher working in the field of the philosophy of mind who has made important contributions to matters of consciousness and cognitive science. In 1971, he obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University under Hilary Putnam. He went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as an assistant professor of philosophy (1971-1977), worked as associate professor of philosophy (1977-1983), professor of philosophy (1983-1996) and served as chair of the philosophy section (1989-1995). He has, since 1996, been a professor in the departments of philosophy and psychology at New York University (NYU).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 2, 2012
I should acknowledge first that I had a slight edge going into this book in that I'd read a lot of the essays in it before. Most of the book consists of fairly classic literature in philosophy of mind and the study of consciousness, so those who have done a lot of reading the field are likely to have read many of these essays before. There are a few pieces that are very good and less mainstream, but those pieces alone don't really justify the existence of the reader.
What does justify this enormous reader, and it is a behemoth, clocking in at over 800 pages, is that it represents probably the single best collection of essays on consciousness on the market, and by far the most thorough I've run across. There are obviously full length books dedicated to the topic that the reader can't include, but pretty much every publication at 30-pages-or-less [a.k.a. academic journal length] on the subject that has generated any serious heat is included in this edition. As a result, it represents a very valuable piece for those who are looking to get into the field.
Aside from the content, the reader is well put together. It is organized topically, which makes some of the chronology really weird. As a reader, it is really important to be attentive to the dates of publication of the various pieces, because some articles explicitly reference each other and other articles that are importantly influenced don't. It is important to try to keep tabs on the history of the dialogue, and this particular volume is not good at helping follow those lines of thought through time.
That said, there's a pretty good niche in philosophy for those who are looking to get into the field. If you're a second or third year undergraduate philosophy student with some experience in philosophy of mind really looking to get into the hard stuff, this is a great place to be. If you're a graduate student in another field or another sub-field of philosophy, this is a great way to push yourself into the study of consciousness. It is rigorous, and it will kick your ass if you try to do it all at once, so I strongly recommend pacing yourself and reading something else alongside this behemoth, but it will get you more-or-less up to date on all of the major writing in the area of study through about the early '90s, and that is a pretty solid place to be if you're looking to get more involved with the conversation.
What does justify this enormous reader, and it is a behemoth, clocking in at over 800 pages, is that it represents probably the single best collection of essays on consciousness on the market, and by far the most thorough I've run across. There are obviously full length books dedicated to the topic that the reader can't include, but pretty much every publication at 30-pages-or-less [a.k.a. academic journal length] on the subject that has generated any serious heat is included in this edition. As a result, it represents a very valuable piece for those who are looking to get into the field.
Aside from the content, the reader is well put together. It is organized topically, which makes some of the chronology really weird. As a reader, it is really important to be attentive to the dates of publication of the various pieces, because some articles explicitly reference each other and other articles that are importantly influenced don't. It is important to try to keep tabs on the history of the dialogue, and this particular volume is not good at helping follow those lines of thought through time.
That said, there's a pretty good niche in philosophy for those who are looking to get into the field. If you're a second or third year undergraduate philosophy student with some experience in philosophy of mind really looking to get into the hard stuff, this is a great place to be. If you're a graduate student in another field or another sub-field of philosophy, this is a great way to push yourself into the study of consciousness. It is rigorous, and it will kick your ass if you try to do it all at once, so I strongly recommend pacing yourself and reading something else alongside this behemoth, but it will get you more-or-less up to date on all of the major writing in the area of study through about the early '90s, and that is a pretty solid place to be if you're looking to get more involved with the conversation.
September 3, 2024
AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF ARTICLES ON THIS TOPIC
This 1997 book contains an amazing and diverse collection of essays, articles and excerpts, from such philosophy of mind "heavyweights" as Daniel Dennett ['Consciousness Explained'], Owen Flanagan ['Consciousness Reconsidered'], Patricia Churchland ['Neurophilosophy'], Ned Block ['Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Volume I'], Bernard Baars ['In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind'], Francis Crick [' The Astonishing Hypothesis'], David Chalmers ['The Conscious Mind'], John Searle ['The Mystery of Consciousness'], Thomas Nagel, David Lewis, David Rosenthal, etc.
The Preface states, "These are exciting times for thinking about consciousness, and this book represents the cornerstones of contemporary philosophical thinking on the subject. Also included is a small corpus of articles representative of current psychology and neuropsychology research on consciousness that has given rise to fruitful discussions in the philosophy of mind. We hope that this book will be useful for philosophers in presenting a structured overview of the relevant literature on consciousness... We are witnessing an upsurge of interest in consciousness concurrently in several disciplines---most notably, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience." (Pg. xi)
One essayist wrote, "In order to get into some of the inner structure ... consider the following five questions... 1. What are the media and mechanisms of consciousness? Can consciousness occur in any type of material substance, or does it have to have a specific kind of underpinning (e.g., a carbon-based molecular structure)?... 2. Where is, if anywhere, the locus of consciousness? Can consciousness be localized in a specific organ... 3. Who can be said to be a conscious being?... 4. Why is there consciousness at all, and what is the role it plays in the general scheme of mental life and behavior of an organism?... 5. How does consciousness arise in, or emerge from, its underlying substance, structure, and mechanism, in the way it does?" (Pg. 31)
Owen Flanagan observes, "There are... no very good theories about why conscious experientially hominids should have been favored over merely informationally sensitive ones, and although it is pretty clear that sensational consciousness... comes with the human genome, it is not clear that, for example, moral self-consciousness does. Moral self-consciousness, like the ability to play chess or basketball, is allowed by our genes, but it was hardly selected for." (Pg. 101)
John Searle provides an illustration of a brain made out of silicon chips, then admitting, "I hasten to add that I don't for a moment think that such a thing is even remotely possible. I think it is empirically absurd to suppose that we could duplicate the causal powers of neurons entirely in silicon. But that is an empirical claim on my part. It is not something that we could establish a priori. So the thought experiment remains valid as a statement of logical or conceptual possibility." (Pg. 493)
Nagel's famous article, 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' is included, wherein he says, "Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life... But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience AT ALL means, basically, that there is something it is like to BE that organism.... fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to BE that organism---something it is like FOR the organism." (Pg. 519)
He adds, "It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing around one's arms... that one has very poor vision, and perceives the world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals... Insofar as I can imagine this ... it tells me only what it would be like for ME to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a BAT to be a bat." (Pg. 520-521)
This collection of articles will be "must reading" for anyone seriously studying the philosophy of mind, or consciousness studies.
This 1997 book contains an amazing and diverse collection of essays, articles and excerpts, from such philosophy of mind "heavyweights" as Daniel Dennett ['Consciousness Explained'], Owen Flanagan ['Consciousness Reconsidered'], Patricia Churchland ['Neurophilosophy'], Ned Block ['Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Volume I'], Bernard Baars ['In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind'], Francis Crick [' The Astonishing Hypothesis'], David Chalmers ['The Conscious Mind'], John Searle ['The Mystery of Consciousness'], Thomas Nagel, David Lewis, David Rosenthal, etc.
The Preface states, "These are exciting times for thinking about consciousness, and this book represents the cornerstones of contemporary philosophical thinking on the subject. Also included is a small corpus of articles representative of current psychology and neuropsychology research on consciousness that has given rise to fruitful discussions in the philosophy of mind. We hope that this book will be useful for philosophers in presenting a structured overview of the relevant literature on consciousness... We are witnessing an upsurge of interest in consciousness concurrently in several disciplines---most notably, philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience." (Pg. xi)
One essayist wrote, "In order to get into some of the inner structure ... consider the following five questions... 1. What are the media and mechanisms of consciousness? Can consciousness occur in any type of material substance, or does it have to have a specific kind of underpinning (e.g., a carbon-based molecular structure)?... 2. Where is, if anywhere, the locus of consciousness? Can consciousness be localized in a specific organ... 3. Who can be said to be a conscious being?... 4. Why is there consciousness at all, and what is the role it plays in the general scheme of mental life and behavior of an organism?... 5. How does consciousness arise in, or emerge from, its underlying substance, structure, and mechanism, in the way it does?" (Pg. 31)
Owen Flanagan observes, "There are... no very good theories about why conscious experientially hominids should have been favored over merely informationally sensitive ones, and although it is pretty clear that sensational consciousness... comes with the human genome, it is not clear that, for example, moral self-consciousness does. Moral self-consciousness, like the ability to play chess or basketball, is allowed by our genes, but it was hardly selected for." (Pg. 101)
John Searle provides an illustration of a brain made out of silicon chips, then admitting, "I hasten to add that I don't for a moment think that such a thing is even remotely possible. I think it is empirically absurd to suppose that we could duplicate the causal powers of neurons entirely in silicon. But that is an empirical claim on my part. It is not something that we could establish a priori. So the thought experiment remains valid as a statement of logical or conceptual possibility." (Pg. 493)
Nagel's famous article, 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' is included, wherein he says, "Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life... But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience AT ALL means, basically, that there is something it is like to BE that organism.... fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to BE that organism---something it is like FOR the organism." (Pg. 519)
He adds, "It will not help to try to imagine that one has webbing around one's arms... that one has very poor vision, and perceives the world by a system of reflected high-frequency sound signals... Insofar as I can imagine this ... it tells me only what it would be like for ME to behave as a bat behaves. But that is not the question. I want to know what it is like for a BAT to be a bat." (Pg. 520-521)
This collection of articles will be "must reading" for anyone seriously studying the philosophy of mind, or consciousness studies.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews