Velmans Blackwell Companion to Consciousness 1st Edition

by Max Velmans (Editor), Susan Schneider (Editor)

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ISBN-13: 978-1405160001

ISBN-10: 1405160004

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The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness
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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.

Provides a variety of philosophical and scientific perspectives that create a breadth of understanding of the topic
Topics include the origins and extent of consciousness, different consciousness experiences, such as meditation and drug-induced states, and the neuroscience of consciousness

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“This outstanding collection of new essays, many by major figures, covers virtually every important topic in current research on consciousness, often in illuminating depth. Nobody interested in current thinking about consciousness will want to be without this volume.”
David M. Rosenthal, City University of New York, Graduate Center

“The list of contributors reads like a roll-call of the best modern studies of consciousness: they have contributed some of the best philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of consciousness. The chapters of this companion show that consciousness has moved on from being a set of interesting problems towards being a topic of systematic, interdisciplinary scientific investigation.”
Patrick Haggard, University College London

“An absolutely indispensable resource for anyone interested in the study of consciousness. The major philosophical positions and controversies and all the latest scientific research are surveyed in 55 accessible, yet in-depth, essays.”
Robert Kane, University of Texas at Austin

"This is an outstanding book that anyone interested in consciousness really needs to read and absorb."
The Psychologist

"A valuable record of some of the best contempory thinking on consciousness."
The Journal of Consciousness Studies

Book Description

The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness is the most thorough and comprehensive survey of contemporary scientific research and philosophical thought on consciousness currently available. Extensively peer reviewed, its 55 newly commissioned chapters combine state of the art surveys with cutting-edge research. Taken as a whole, these essays by leading lights in the philosophy and science of consciousness create an engaging dialogue and unparalleled source of information regarding this most fascinating and mysterious subject. As the study of the philosophy and science of consciousness becomes ever more popular, this text will be appreciated by readers of philosophy and science alike.

Publisher : Blackwell Publishing; 1st edition (January 5, 2007)
Language : English
Paperback : 768 pages
ISBN-10 : 1405160004
ISBN-13 : 978-1405160001
Item Weight : 2.9 pounds
Dimensions : 6.69 x 1.73 x 9.61 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,329,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,695 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)
- #3,901 in History of Philosophy
- #4,077 in Philosophy History & Survey

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Reader

Excellent Survey

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2012

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Published in 2007 and edited by Velmans and Schneider `The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness' is a collection of papers from leading contemporary philosophers and scientists working in the area of consciousness studies, contributors include; Levine, Searle, Koch, Kim, Chambers, Fontana and Stapp to name a few (the table of contents is available on-line).

In recent decades the study of consciousness has blossomed into a truly exciting and dynamic area of scientific research and philosophical thought; a multidisciplinary field which includes philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. The articles in the text provide an excellent survey of work within these various fields. And as such is a helpful resource for readers seeking to say abreast consciousness studies. In addition to the excellent material, surveys such as this are also valuable in introducing readers to new thinkers and ideas that they may wish to pursue further.

The nature of these short contributions is such that they can, at times, be somewhat terse. While generally accessible many of the papers presuppose a degree of familiarity with the subject matter. Two course available on-line through itunes UC Berkeley, Spring 2011, that may be worthwhile for readers seeking background information in this area are John Searle's Philosophy of the Mind and John Kihlstrom's Cognitive Science (or it could be Cognitive Psychology). Both men are leaders in their respective fields and outstanding lecturers (they are also contributors to this volume).

Overall this is another excellent instalment in the Blackwell Companions series. I highly recommend it for readers interested in an overview of current consciousness studies.

3 people found this helpful

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A Vast Panorama of Consciousness

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2007

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This book is a typical example of the best type of Blackwell Companion Book. In various incarnations over the years, Blackwell has remained one of the most revered of publishing houses. Their books are written by world experts in their respective fields and something unusual: each chapter or book is heavily peer-reviewed. This is important: so many books appear to be promising, only for us to discover that they are full of mistakes: error of omission or commission, or errors in citations and attributions. I have found very few errors at all in this enormous tome.

Blackwell also produce their books on high quality paper using well-drawn and appropriate illustration. This book is a perfect example.

After an introduction by the editors - Susan Schneider from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and Max Velmans from Goldsmiths College, University of London, the 700 plus pages are divided into five parts and 55 chapters:

Part I: Problems of Consciousness:
1. A Brief History of the Scientific Approach to the Study of Consciousness: Chris Frith (University College London) and Geraint Rees (University College London)
2. Philosophical Problems of Consciousness: Michael Tye (University of Texas, Austin)

Part II: The Domain of Consciousness: Origins and Extent of Consciousness:
3. Consciousness in Infants: Colwyn Trevarthen (University of Edinburgh) and Vasuvedi Reddy (University of Portsmouth)
4. Animal Consciousness: Colin Allen (Indiana University) and Mark Bekoff (University of Colorado)
5. Rethinking the Evolution of Consciousness: Thomas Polger (University of Cincinnati)
6. Machine Consciousness: Igor Aleksander (Imperial College, London)
Some Varieties of Conscious Experience:
7. Normal and Abnormal States of Consciousness: J. Allan Hobson (Harvard Medical School)
8. Affective Consciousness: Jaak Panksepp (Washington State University)
9. Clinical Pathologies and Unusual Experiences: Richard P. Bentall (University of Manchester)
10. Altered States of Consciousness: Drug Induced States: Edward F. Pace-Schott (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) and J. Allan Hobson (Harvard Medical School)
11. Meditation: David Fontana (Liverpool John Moores University)
12. Mystical Experience: David Fontana (Liverpool John Moores University)
Breakdowns and the Unity of Consciousness:
13. The Case of Blindsight: Lawrence Weiskrantz (University of Oxford)
14. Split-Brain Cases: Mary K. Colvin (Dartmouth College) and Michael S. Gazzaniga (University of California, Santa Barbara)
15. Philosophical Psychopathology and Self-Consciousness: G. Lynn Stephens (University of Alabama) and George Graham (Wake Forest University)
16. Coming Together: the Unity of Conscious Experience: Barry Dainton (University of Liverpool)

Part III: Some Contemporary Theories of Consciousness:
17. The Hard Problem of Consciousness: David Chalmers (Australian National University)
18. The Global Workspace Theory of Consciousness: Bernard J. Baars (Neurosciences Institute, San Diego)
19. The Intermediate Level Theory of Consciousness: Jesse Prinz (University of North Carolina)
20. Representationalism about Consciousness: William Seager (University of Toronto at Scarborough) and David Bourget (University of Toronto)
21. Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness: Peter Caruthers (University of Maryland)
22. The Information Integration Theory of Consciousness: Giulio Tononi (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
23. Quantum Mechanical Theories of Consciousness: Henry Stapp (University of California, Berkeley)
24. Daniel Dennett on the Nature of Consciousness: Susan Schneider (University of Pennsylvania)
25. Biological Naturalism: John Searle (University of California, Berkeley)
26. Mysterianism: Mark Rowlands (University of Hertfordshire)
27. Dualism, Reductionism, and Reflexive Monism: Max Velmans (Goldsmiths, University of London)
28. Naturalistic Dualism: David Chalmers (Australian National University)

Part IV: Some Major Topics in the Philosophy of Consciousness:
29. Anti-materialist Arguments and Influential Replies: Joe Levine (Ohio State University)
30. Functionalism and Qualia: Robert Van Gulick (Syracuse University)
31. The Knowledge Argument: Torin Alter (University of Alabama)
32. The Causal Efficacy of Consciousness: Jaegwon Kim (Brown University)
33. The Neurophilosophy of Consciousness: Pete Mandik (William Paterson University)
34. Type Materialism for Phenomenal Consciousness: Brian McLaughlin (Rutgers University)
35. Sensory and Perceptual Consciousness: Austen Clark (University of Connecticut)
36. Self-Consciousness: José Luis Bermúdez (Washington University)
37. Consciousness and Intentionality: George Graham (Wake Forest University), Terry Horgan (University of Arizona), and John Tienson (University of Memphis)

Part V: Major Topics in the Science of Consciousness: Topics in the Cognitive
Psychology of Consciousness:
38. Attention and Consciousness: Nilli Lavie (University College London)
39. Inattentional Blindness, Change Blindness and Consciousness: Alva Noë (University of California, Berkeley)
40. Preconscious Processing: Phil Merikle (University of Waterloo)
41. Implicit and Explicit Memory and Learning: John Kihlstrom (University of California, Berkeley), Jennifer Dorfman (Northwestern University), and Lillian Park (Rotman Research Institute, Toronto)
42. Consciousness of Action: Marc Jeannerod (Claude Bernard University, Lyon)
Topics in the Neuroscience of Consciousness:
43. Methodologies for Identifying the Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Geraint Rees (University College London) and Chris Frith (University College London)
44. A Neurobiological Framework for Consciousness: Francis Crick (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies) and Christof Koch (California Institute of Technology)
45. A Theory of Micro-consciousness: Semir Zeki (University College London)
46. Global Disorders of Consciousness: Nicholas D. Schiff (Weill Medical College, Cornell University)
47. Large-Scale Temporal Coordination of Cortical Activity as a Prerequisite for Conscious Experience: Wolf Singer (Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main)
48. Duplex Vision: Separate Cortical Pathways for Conscious Perception and the Control of Action: Melvyn A. Goodale (University of Western Ontario)
49. Consciousness and Anesthesia: John F. Kihlstrom (University of California, Berkeley) and Randall C. Cork (Louisiana State University Medical Center)
50. Neural Dominance, Neural Deference, and Sensorimotor Dynamics: Susan Hurley (All Souls College, Oxford)
51. Benjamin Libet's Work on the Neuroscience of Free Will: William P. Banks (Pomona College) and Susan Pockett (University of Auckland)
First-Person Contributions to the Science of Consciousness:
52. Cognition, Fringe Consciousness, and the Legacy of William James: Bruce Mangan (University of California, Berkeley)
53. Phenomenological Approaches to Consciousness: Shaun Gallagher (University of Central Florida)
54. Eastern Methods for Investigating Mind and Consciousness: Jonathan Shear (Virginia Commonwealth University)
55. An Epistemology for the Study of Consciousness: Max Velmans (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Appendix: List of Useful Web Resources in Consciousness Studies

With so many authors, it is inevitable that some experts will lament the absence of some favorite writer or other, or else will take issue with some facts or interpretation. But most chapters do an excellent job of airing each side of an argument, debate or discussion.

This is a big book in every sense of the word. It is not inexpensive, but in my opinion is worth every penny. It will be a long time - if ever - before there will be a last word in a field as enormous as the study of human consciousness. But for now, this is one of the best and most comprehensive books available.

If you have any interest in consciousness, you will find a great deal of fascinating and thought provoking material in this book.

Highly recommended.

Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

39 people found this helpful

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limestone_lenny

Some valuable writing on consciousness

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2011

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When I got interested in consciousness theory, I bought four recent books on the subject, by some of the well-known authors. I dipped into them, but didn't really get traction. I found David Chalmer's website on consciousness, and downloaded a dozen papers by various authors. Some interesting insights, but again, nothing really engaged. Academic papers tend to be arcane.

Then I bought this Blackwell Companion. This is more like what I had in mind. I can read this and get something out of it. The style is a little simpler than your average scholarly paper, but still aiming at precision of expression, enough to make you follow closely.

I read all 55 chapters of the book. (Where is my gold star?) Some typical philosophical nuisances - pebble-in-the-shoe things - appear repeatedly, like: color spectrum inversion speculations, philosophical zombies, and color-deprived Mary. But I just plowed ahead when I encountered these.

Of the 62 contributors, 54 are authors or co-authors of related books appearing on Amazon. This is not surprising, and the opportunity to increase one's name recognition is probably a draw for becoming a contributor to a book like BCTC. I took a look at a number of these books, and actually did order two, one by John Searle and one featuring Wolf Singer.

Before the BCTC gets too dated, I think I can forgo a lot of book ordering and just re-read the interesting chapters in BCTC.

3 people found this helpful

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Chris H

great complilation

Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2015

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Great collection of research and philosophy, excellent for anyone interested in consciousness.

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Peter Hopwood

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2017

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A good compilation of Western thinking about human consciousness.

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John Ferngrove

A fork in the philosophical road

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 26, 2011

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Reading this book, over a period of about two months, has been a fairly epic and occasionally demanding journey. Along the way I have made diversions to re-read Kim's The Philosophy of Mind , Chalmers' The Conscious Mind , and the very useful chapter on philosophical logic in Philosophy 1: A Guide Through the Subject , in order to better follow its arguments. I include these references to give some indication of the background needed to approach these texts, and for whatever help they may be in assisting prospective readers in acquiring that background.

At the end of it all I feel that I have acquired a more or less robust perspective on the various philosophical positions of the consciousness debate; physicalism, reductive and non-reductive; dualism, substance and property; functionalism, type materialism or identity theory, and so on. (Though I must confess to still being baffled by representationalism. Are these very clever people missing the obvious, or are they onto something too deep for a duffer like me to follow? All too probably the latter). There's also all the furniture that goes with the debate; supervenience, zombies, spectrum inverts, Mary the colour scientist, the hard problem, the explanatory gap, water and H2O, and the degrees of rigidity of the designators thereto, etc. Each of the positions has its own response to each of these items, and each of the other positions has its own response to those responses, and so it goes. Upon completing the book, presuming one has been able to hang on until the end, one should be able to read any high to intermediate level articles on the subject and know from which position the author is coming from, and the broad implications of that position. One should also have formed a perspective on the relation between the philosophical positions and the so called special sciences; neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science; and the claims that they might make with respect to consciousness.

Completing this book, in a sense, feels like coming to the end of a particular journey that began when I first read Descartes' Meditations, over thirty years ago. Since then I have read several of the key books by some of the key authors; Dennett, Chalmers, Edelman, etc, but I always felt that these authors were referring to a big picture that I was not privy too. When I read Kim for the first time I did not realise that I was being given a high-level overview of that big picture, because the relatively concise chapter on consciousness did not make glaringly explicit its connections to the wider domain of philosophy of mind. Now, after reading this, I know I have that big picture. If there are any other philosophical theories of consciousness knocking around out there, then they are off the mainstream academic radar. The battleground is defined, the territory is mapped, it is now just a question of how much detail I want to fill in.

So now I have a choice. I can either continue to buy philosophy books with the word `consciousness' in their title, and keep rehearsing the same arguments until I can mumble them in my sleep. Or it is time to take a step back from consciousness and make a deeper acquaintance with the wider philosophical background, so that I can pursue the consciousness debate down to its more deep and dirty levels. Reading this and the asterisk sections in Chalmers have shown that a lot of the real nitty-gritty of the discussion these days is taking place in terms of questions of conceivability in thought experiments, e.g. zombies, and the kinds of necessity that might underlie supervenience and reductive explanation. These concepts and their relevant frameworks seem to fall under the more general domains of epistemology, metaphysics and logic, so if I want to take consciousness any further it seems that there is where I will have to go. One name in particular comes up again and again; Saul Kripke and his Naming and Necessity would seem to be the point to set my compass too. So this is the question; in a world of history, art, poetry and music, just how much of my precious time would I want to devote to these philosophical pursuits? Just how much do I want to understand consciousness? Especially knowing that there is probably no final understanding to be had. Thinking . . .

One person found this helpful

Marcolorenzo

Useful and wide ranging

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 26, 2009

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The best feature of this companion is the wide range of topics discussed and the many points of view included. It treats, even if in many cases only marginally or superficially, a great many of the important topics on consciousness. Together with its references, it is certainly a recommendable place to start, but by no means is it a definitive survey, not only because there is no definitive text available, owing to the state of our knowledge on consciousness, but more precisely because many of the essays which treat important areas are inconclusive, vague or treat only marginally important areas of the topic. There are some very clear and systematic essays, which clarify many of the muddy points in this complex subject area. I found David Fontana's 2 essays on "Meditation" and on "Mystical Experience" well done, John Searle's essay on Biological Naturalism, full of clarity and down-to-earthness,and the very clear discussion of "Sensory and Perceptual Consciousness" by Austen Clark to be recommendable. It definitely is deficient on the philosophy of consciousness, probably treated better in the Blackwell Companion to Philosophy of Mind. Recommended as a start however. A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy)

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Chris

IMPORTANT BOOK

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 9, 2013

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A vital book to study for my masters degree course. Of interest to anyone interested in discovering that consciousness is quite separate from the brain.

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