What is consciousness? What is the place of consciousness in nature? These and related questions occupy a prominent place in contemporary studies in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, often involving complex interdisciplinary connections between philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, biology and cognitive neuroscience. At the same time, these questions play a fundamental role in the philosophies of great thinkers of the past such as, among others, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, William James and Edmund Husserl. This new collection of essays by leading contemporary philosophers of mind and historians of philosophy seeks to address these questions from both a systematic and a theoretical perspective and to create a new and fruitful forum for future discussion. In the attempt to do justice to the richness of our mental life, the volume features in-depth examinations not solely of mainstream physicalist doctrines, but also of largely neglected positions such as Cartesian dualism, idealism and panpsychism.

This new collection of essays brings together leading contemporary philosophers of mind to re-examine the key question: what is consciousness?

About the Author
Pauline Phemister is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. Her publications include The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz (2006) and Leibniz and the Natural World: Activity, Passivity and Corporeal Substances in the Philosophy of Leibniz (2005). She has published widely on topics in early modern philosophy, especially in the areas of metaphysics, ethics and mind-body relations. Julian Kiverstein is a Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. The author of a number of papers on consciousness, temporality and the self, he is also editing Heidegger and Cognitive Science (2010, with Michael Wheeler) and Decomposing the Will (2010, with Till Vierkant and Andy Clark). Pierfrancesco Basile teaches Philosophy at the University of Bern, Switzerland. His publications include two books, Experience and Relations: An Examination of F. H. Bradley's Conception of Reality (1999) and Leibniz, Whitehead and the Metaphysics of Causation (2009), as well as several essays on issues in metaphysics, process thought, British idealism and early analytic philosophy.


Book Information
ISBN 9780521173919
Author Pierfrancesco Basile
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 420g
Dimensions(mm) 228mm * 152mm * 17mm