1st Edition

Metaphysics of Consciousness

By William Seager Copyright 1991
    272 Pages
    by Routledge

    270 Pages
    by Routledge

    Metaphysics of Consciousness opens with a development of the physicalist outlook that denies the need for any explanation of the mental. This "inexplicability" is demonstrated not to be sufficient as refutation of physicalism. However, the inescapable particularity of modes of consciousness appears to overpower this minimal physicalism. This book proposes that such an inference requires either a wholly new conception of how consciousness is physical or a deep and disturbing new kind of physical inexplicability.

    Part 1 The Retreat of Physicalism; Chapter 1 Physicalism, Ontology and Explanation; Chapter 2 Positive Reductive Strategies; Chapter 3 Negative Reductive Strategies; Part 2 The Problem of Consciousness; Chapter 4 Varieties of Supervenience; Chapter 5 Consciousness, Information and Epiphenomenalism; Chapter 6 Consciousness and Causal Efficacy; Chapter 7 Reconciliation and Mystery;

    Biography

    William Seagerm

    'The author has produced a book which is lucidly written, closely reasoned and not overly polemical ... This is more than just a good book - it is an important book.' - Times Higher Educational Supplement