1st Edition

Consciousness and the Ontology of Properties

Edited By Mihretu P. Guta Copyright 2019
306 Pages
by Routledge

306 Pages
by Routledge

This book aims to show the centrality of a proper ontology of properties in thinking about consciousness. Philosophers have long grappled with what is now known as the hard problem of consciousness, i.e., how can subjective or qualitative features of our experience—such as how a strawberry tastes—arise from brain states? More recently, philosophers have incorporated what seems like promising... Read more

Introduction Mihretu P. Guta  Part I: Ontology, Properties and Consciousness  1. The Mystery of the Mystery of Consciousness John Heil  2. Physical Properties Alexander D. Carruth  3. A Powerful New Anomalous Monism Henry Taylor  4. What We Conceive of When We Conceive of Zombies Donnchadh O'Connaill  5. The Metaphysics of Artifical Intelligence Eric T. Olson  6. Substance Dualism: The Best Account of the Unity of Consciousness J. P. Moreland  Part II: Ontology, Emergence and Consciousness  7. Explaining the Ontological Emergence of Consciousness Philip Woodward  8. The Non-Causal Account of the Spontaneous Emergence of Phenomenal Consciousness Mihretu P. Guta  Part III: Mental Causation and Consciousness  9. Mental Causation and Counterfactuals: A New Argument for the Type-Identity Thesis José Luis Bermúdez and Arnon Cahen  10. Mental Causation Really is Mental Causation Richard Swinburne  Part IV: Extended Mind, Constitution and Consciousness  11. Extended Mind and the Authority of Consciousness Adam Green  12. New Mechanisms and the Enactivist Concept of Constitution Shaun Gallagher  Part V: Neuroscience and Consciousness  13. Hard Problems of Unified Experience from the Perspective of Neuroscience Eric LaRock  14. Neural Correlates of Consciousness and the Nature of the Mind Matthew Owen  References  Index

Biography

Mihretu P. Guta teaches philosophy at both the graduate and undergraduate levels at Biola University and at Azusa Pacific University, California. He co-edited with Sophie Gibb the Special Issue for the Journal of Consciousness Studies, entitled ‘Insights into the first-person perspective and the self: an interdisciplinary approach’, 11-12 (2015), and is currently working on a manuscript entitled The Metaphysics of Substance and Personhood: A Non-Theory-Laden Approach.

"Anyone looking for a single volume of the latest, most promising work in philosophy of mind could not do better than Guta's brilliant collection of 14 fresh essays in Consciousness and the Ontology of Properties. This is a work that is ideal for experts as well as newcomers who are engaged with philosophically exploring the nature of consciousness."

-Charles Taliaferro, St. Olaf College