The Nature of ConsciousnessIn The Nature of Consciousness, Mark Rowlands develops an innovative account of the nature of phenomenal consciousness, one that has significant consequences for attempts to find a place for it in the natural order. The most significant feature of consciousness is its dual nature: consciousness can be both the directing of awareness and that upon which awareness is directed. Rowlands offers a clear and philosophically insightful discussion of the main positions in this fast-moving debate, and 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. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Consciousness and supervenience | 26 |
3 The explanatory gap | 51 |
4 Consciousness and higherorder experience | 75 |
5 Consciousness and higherorder thoughts | 101 |
6 The structure of consciousness | 122 |
7 What it is like | 148 |
mistakes about the way things seem | 178 |
9 Consciousness and representation | 197 |
10 Consciousness and the natural order | 216 |
| 236 | |
| 242 | |
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Common terms and phrases
act of consciousness actualist interpretation apperception argue argument basic behaviour bodily damage Burkina Faso Carruthers causal causal role Chalmers chapter claim concept of consciousness conscious acquaintance conscious experience constituted construal correlation damage as painful dispositionalist distinct entails epiphenomenalism epiphenomenalist epistemic satisfaction epistemically satisfying epistemological example experience seems explained in terms explanation of consciousness F-facts higher-order thought holism HOT model idea instantiation intransitively conscious intuition inverted earth ionic bonding logical supervenience Lycan McGinn mechanism mindblindness mode of presentation model of consciousness molecular natural supervenience ness neural object of consciousness objectualist interpretation one’s ontological Ouagadougou perceptual completion perspective phenomenal character phenomenal consciousness phenomenal particular phenomenal properties phenomenology physical possess problem processes proper function qualia reductive explanation relevant representational properties representationism representationist revealed rience Rosenthal sciousness seems or feels sense simply sort subvenient supervenience relations supervenient facts suppose talk things tion tokens transcendental apperception transitive understand virtue visual