Skip to content

Dialogue on Consciousness

Best in textbook rentals since 2012!

ISBN-10: 0195375297

ISBN-13: 9780195375299

Edition: 2009

Authors: Torin Andrew Alter, Robert Howell, Torin Alter, Robert J. Howell

List price: $19.95
Blue ribbon 30 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee!
what's this?
Rush Rewards U
Members Receive:
Carrot Coin icon
XP icon
You have reached 400 XP and carrot coins. That is the daily max!

In recent years, the problem of consciousness has developed into one of the most important and hotly contested areas in the philosophy of mind. Many philosophers regard consciousness as an entirely physical phenomenon, yet it seems to elude scientific explanation. On the other hand, viewing consciousness as a nonphysical phenomenon brings up even larger issues. If consciousness is not physical, how can it be explained? Concise, up-to-date, and engaging, A Dialogue on Consciousness explores these issues in depth. It features two main characters, Tollens and Ponens--unemployed graduate students who secretly live in a university library--who bring the debate alive. Tollens and Ponens examine…    
Customers also bought

Book details

List price: $19.95
Copyright year: 2009
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Publication date: 1/13/2009
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 160
Size: 5.75" wide x 8.25" long x 0.50" tall
Weight: 0.330
Language: English

Preface
Acknowledgments
Monday Night
Late Night in the Library
The Subjectivity of Experience
The Soul and the Mind
Descartes' Conceivability Argument
Lois Lane, Clark Kent, and Superman
Arnauld's Objection to Descartes' Argument
Hume's Elusive Self
Souls and the Problem of Mental-Physical Causation
Tuesday Night
Computers and Cognition
Consciousness versus Cognition
Ignoring Subjectivity
What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
The Need for a New Framework
Mary and the Knowledge Argument against Physicalism
Spectrum Inversion
Zombies and the Conceivability Argument against Physicalism
Wednesday Night
The Structure of the Anti-Physicalist Arguments: The Epistemic Step and the Metaphysical Step
Questioning the Epistemic Step
Afterimages and Mary's Shortcuts to Phenomenal Knowledge
The Importance of Deduction
Psycho-Physical Laws
Hooking Up to the Physical
The Objectivity Condition on the Physical
Deduction and Translation
The Ability Hypothesis
The Connection between Abilities and Information
Representationalism and the Transparency of Experience
Thursday Night
Questioning the Metaphysical Step
Superheroes and the Many Disguises of Physical Facts
Disguise Depends on Ignorance
The Cognitive Isolation of Phenomenal Concepts
Martian Mary and the Phenomenal Concept Strategy
Do Phenomenal Concepts Require Experience?
The Dilemma for the Phenomenal Concept Strategy
Descartes Returns, with Zombies
Friday Night
Clarifying Property Dualism
Why Souls Are No Help
The Causal Inefficacy of Nonphysical Qualia
Assessing the Costs of Epiphenomenalism
The Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment
The Attractions of Monism
Saturday
Panpsychism
Phenomenal Properties as the Ground of Physical Dispositions
Panprotopsychism
The Combination Problem
The Problem of Mental-Physical Causation Redux
The Significance of Ignorance
Defining the Physical
Subjective Physicalism
Necessitation without Deduction
The Sun Rises
Reading Suggestions
Sources of Quotations
Index