Consciousness Reconsidered

Consciousness is neither miraculous nor ultimately mysterious. In this account Owen Flanagan argues that we are on the way to understanding consciousness and its place in the natural order. No aspect of consciousness escapes Flanagan's probe. Qualia, self-consciousness, autobiographical memory, perceptions, sensations, the stream of consciousness, disorders such as blindsight, various kinds of amnesia, and multiple personality all find a place in a constructive theory that brings into reflective equilibrium insights from a wide array of disciplines to reveal the structure of consciousness. Flanagan roams through a variety of scientific and philosophical domains, showing how it is possible to understand human consciousness in a way that gives its subjective, phenomenal aspects their full due while at the same time taking into account the neural bases of subjectivity. The result is a synthetic theory of consciousness, a "constructive naturalism", according to which subjective consciousness is real, plays an important causal role and resides in the brain. Flanagan draws the reader into current debates among such philosophers as Thomas Nagel, Daniel Dennett, Paul Churchland, Patricia Churchland, and Colin McGinn, and he makes this world accessible. He weaves the latest insights from theory and research in cognitive neuroscience, neural darwinism, connectionist brain architecture, and PET scanners to reveal links between events that "seem a certain way" and underlying neural activity. William James's famous phenomenological analysis of consciousness and neurologically impaired characters from the writings of Oliver Sacks and A.R. Luria join the narrative, providing insights into important controversies on the relation of consciousness to self.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Subjectivity and the natural order: philosophical space; consciousness and cognitivism; conscious shyness and the new mysterianism; subjectivity, objectivity and the natural method; the natural method - three examples. Part 2 Quining consciousness: what quining is; the Phlogiston objection; the Karma objection. Part 3 Consciousness and the brain: mind, brain, and experience; the evolution of Darwin machines; neural Darwinism; self and nonself; sensory qualia and neural vectors; experiential sensitivity versus informational sensitivity; identity theory to a first approximation? Part 4 Qualia: quining qualia; what qualia are; sensational and nonsensational qualia; inverted qualia; intractable qualia. Part 5 The missing shade of you: the subject is experience; the missing shade of blue; the missing shade of you; capturing you - the very idea; grasping experience; missing shades again; refrain - the missing shade of you. Part 6 The mystery of consciousness: the mystery of qualia; the first argument - why we can't solve the problem of consciousness; critique of the first argument; some further objections and replies; the second argument - the hidden structure of consciousness; critique of the hidden-structure argument. Part 7 Conscious inessentialism and the Epiphenomenalist suspicion: conscious inessentialism; the Epiphenomenalist suspicion; some arguments from design; an experiment in Epiphenomenalism; teleological functionalism, Epiphenomenalism and defects of consciousness; blocking teleological functionalism; phenomenal access; can the Epiphenomenalist explain everything that the teleological functionalist can explain?. Part 8 The stream of consciousness: what is it like to have a normal consciousness?; phenomenology; are we ever wholly unconscious?; the stream; the function of the stream; nonstandard phenomenologies; phenomenal competition. Part 9 The illusion of the mind's "I": the illusion of ego; me - the self as known; the seduction; I - the self as knower; personal identity; the unbearable lightness of egolessness. Part 10 Consciousness and the self: weak and strong self-consciousness; actual and self-represented identity; the narrative structure of self-representation; self-emergence; whom the self plays for; the self as fiction; real and unreal selves. Part 11 Unified theory of consciousness?: prospects for a theory of consciousness; a brief recapitualtion.

Review :
This is a marvelous book. Its central claim is that within a broadly conceived naturalism there can be a coherent, probing, insightful theory of consciousness. Flanagan examines more problems and topics associated with consciousness than any other philosopher since William James!"- George Graham, Professor of Philosophy, University of Alabama, Birmingham - George Graham, Professor of Philosophy, University of Alabama, Birmingham